It's not bad, a little expensive but can be a big tempo boost. I've also tried Demonheart in there, which also worked really well.
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Hearthstone |OT3| Preparing for the Ball of Spiders Meta
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It's not bad, a little expensive but can be a big tempo boost. I've also tried Demonheart in there, which also worked really well.
rangersfan414
Member
That was amazing and all cause of an innocent hungry dragon play lol.
I think I should complain more about having a mediocre decks. I'm 5-1 right now when I thought it was going to do terrible, so I suppose having a minimal part of a mech mage deck is still really strong and the spare parts have good synergy with Dragonkin Sorcerer. Poor Shaman and his Illidan.
Servbot #42
Unconfirmed Member
I just beat a mage in arena that had i shit you not 10 fucking secrets in his deck, 3 mirror image, ice block + ice barrier, Etc. Shit was bananas. Also i'm currently 5-1 in arena as paladin, avenging wrath is pretty good as it turns out.
BigJonsson
Member
How did I ever play this game without Dr boom, wow can he change the match
NobleGundam
Banned
The fireballs in this game are Too Damn High!
Ok, I really overestimated how much does Mage really need Flamestrikes and Polymorphs as I just defeated one that spammed them.
This is my arena deck plus Darkscale Healer, Stranglethorn Tiger x2, Blizzard and Stormwind Champion x2. The real star in the Mage's arsenal seems to be the Water Elemental and not the spells as I previously thought, and the mech synergy is really good.
This is my arena deck plus Darkscale Healer, Stranglethorn Tiger x2, Blizzard and Stormwind Champion x2. The real star in the Mage's arsenal seems to be the Water Elemental and not the spells as I previously thought, and the mech synergy is really good.
Curious how you'd play this arena turn if you'd already seen two Consecrates.
I went Raging Worgen into 1/1 then face, ping Worgen, Egg token into Ogre Brute, and Sunfury into 1/1, playing the Yeti, thinking he didn't have the Consecrate. Naturally, he topdecked it, then won the long game on the back of a turn sequence like Holy Light>Antique Healbot>Lay on Hands, which I was poorly equipped to handle because my deck was awful.
Brian Griffin
Member
Naw. Just make a Rogue deck with all the cheap spells and card draw minions and just throw them all out there as fast as possible. Do things like Shiv your own Acolyte and whatnot. Usually when I do this the opponent catches on and plays fast too since they know they are getting a free win. However, I did actually win once doing this. Usually doesn't take more than 10min to finish.
Just managed to win against a Priest with lots of buffs and I don't even know how I did it against a 10 HP Venture Co. Mercenary, two Temple Enforcers, Cabal Shadow Priest, a Lightspawn and all the typical Priest shit. Well, I think he made some questionable trades but thank them then. This should teach me about judging decks before using them.
Edit: Finally finished against a mage using all the spells against my face that reminded me that spells just win you games with a bit of luck.
Edit: Finally finished against a mage using all the spells against my face that reminded me that spells just win you games with a bit of luck.
Brian Griffin
Member
Worgen into Worgen and Orge, Ping a 1/1, Egg Token into the other, 2/3 goes face, play Yeti, pass.Curious how you'd play this arena turn if you'd already seen two Consecrates.
I went Raging Worgen into 1/1 then face, ping Worgen, Egg token into Ogre Brute, and Sunfury into 1/1, playing the Yeti, thinking he didn't have the Consecrate. Naturally, he topdecked it, then won the long game on the back of a turn sequence like Holy Light>Antique Healbot>Lay on Hands, which I was poorly equipped to handle because my deck was awful.
Lol just experienced my first draw in a longggg time.
Dr. Boom vs. Explosive Trap. I (Mage) was at 2 life and the Hunter was at 4. I fireblasted one of my Boom Bots, it did 3 to him. I said fuck it and attacked since I could not enable the other Boom Bot any other way, other Boom Bot killed him and his trap killed me.
Dr. Boom vs. Explosive Trap. I (Mage) was at 2 life and the Hunter was at 4. I fireblasted one of my Boom Bots, it did 3 to him. I said fuck it and attacked since I could not enable the other Boom Bot any other way, other Boom Bot killed him and his trap killed me.
This should be correct. Consecrate is a common and high priority pick so there's a solid chance he has a third. Generally when you're ahead in arena you want to play around any sensible power cards, doubly so in topdick wars. You control the board and can dictate trades, so there's no reason to set yourself up for removal power turns. The more you're behind the more risks you have to take.
In this situation going face with the damaged Worgen was particularly questionable as you were nowhere near lethal. Unless you drafted insane amounts of reach or your minions are out of removal range a rule of thumb is to only go face when you'd take off a significant percentage of their health. Bringing them from 23 to 19 is irrelevant while 12 to 8 would be an entirely different story.
Yup, was gonna say the same.
I'd definitely be playing around Consecrate though, no matter how many he'd played before this. You're in such a dominant board position that the only way you lose is by getting your board cleared so you need to play around that.
On the topic of Warlock being a fantastic Arena class now, I just went 12-0 with this:
Nothing too fancy. Cairne isn't that great and I think only got played twice. Otherwise it's just a bunch of commons and a Shadowflame. No Dread Infernals either. But the tempo gained from Gang Bosses and Void Callers is just enormous, and the deck has incredible reach with Darkbombs, Power Overwhelming, and Arcane Golem.
Nothing too fancy. Cairne isn't that great and I think only got played twice. Otherwise it's just a bunch of commons and a Shadowflame. No Dread Infernals either. But the tempo gained from Gang Bosses and Void Callers is just enormous, and the deck has incredible reach with Darkbombs, Power Overwhelming, and Arcane Golem.
Yeah, thinking back on it you're right - my thought process at the time was that it's unlikely he has third Consecrate in his two cards and having Raging Worgen on the board deals significantly more damage next turn than the spider token, but I still maintain large amounts of control and don't expose myself to the big swing turn if I go with the safer play. One of my biggest weaknesses as a player is my proclivity toward chasing high variance plays - I can't understate how many times I've thought out the "safe" play (the play everyone posted was my first inclination) and decided to chase the more aggressive one and been punished for it. This was a particularly egregious example.
One thing to consider is my deck felt pretty bad and I'd been chasing more aggressive plays throughout the draft because I wasn't winning against anything decent without basically perfect play. The third loss was the only one that was potentially winnable - the first Paladin ran me off the board with aggro 2 drops on a slow start and the second was a good Mage deck I played pretty tight but just lost to mage value in the end.
That's an insane deck though.
platypotamus
Member
Just had mine today, a 12-2 with a Mage (my previous best was 9-3 with a Warrior).
Mana Wyrm, Unstable Portal, Frost Bolt, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Coin is a great starting hand in arena, FYI.
Well, sure. I'm not saying an average Warlock deck expects to get 12 wins, to say nothing of doing it without dropping a game. I'm saying that Warlock looks a lot like Mage insofar as it's relatively easier to put together a really strong deck with mostly commons that you actually have a pretty good chance of drafting lots of copies of. You have strong single-target removal, some aoe, and huge tempo cards.
My last few warlock arenas have not gone below 4 wins and as high as 9, even with terrible drafts. A far cry from warlock arenas before GVG.
BigJonsson
Member
A priest managed to play the 2/8 with taunt, doubled its health, doubled its health, matched attack to health and hit me for 32 damage on like turn 5 or something lol
Brofist
Member
The king of gimmick decks. Don't worry, he'll lose 10 matches every one times he pulls his combo off.
BigJonsson
Member
BigJonsson
Member
Freeze mage, patron warrior and especially rogue are all bad match ups for even the best Paladin decks, but in no way is Paladin as a class shit tier.
Dragon Paladin is weak compared to some of the new meta decks. Zoo is always a pain in the ass, but beatable. Rogue is impossible. Handlock is probably 80% in paladins favor if you can set-up a good equality/consecration. Face Hunter is rough.
The mid-range decks are competitive and there are a few control/mid-range decks I've been testing that are all 60% win-rate or more.
That being said. Climbing the ladder with Paladin this month (working on gold portrait). Has been PAINFULLY slow.
There are a TON of tempo, mech, freeze mages and zoolock.
paperboywriter
Member
platypotamus
Member
Dear last Arena Opponent,
You were at 16 health, with a snowchugger on the board. I had an earth elemental with windfury (who had just dealt 14 damage to your face). You should have sacrificed your snowchugger to freeze my earth elemental in the hopes of drawing a real answer to him.
Sincerely,
3 more damage to your face, courtesy of my fire elemental.
You were at 16 health, with a snowchugger on the board. I had an earth elemental with windfury (who had just dealt 14 damage to your face). You should have sacrificed your snowchugger to freeze my earth elemental in the hopes of drawing a real answer to him.
Sincerely,
3 more damage to your face, courtesy of my fire elemental.
Dear NeoGAF. Today was a good day.
(if I get any card name wrong, it's because I play the portuguese version)
Ever since I downloaded this accursed game, I am trying to play Priest. Lacking a lot of key cards (lightbomb, cabal shadow prisestess, for example); this wasn't the most pleasant of journeys.
After buying BRM, I tried to do a dragon deck since my 2 of my few legendaries are Alexz and Oxyia (no Ysera, for example). My plan was a full control deck that would later dump the big bad dragons on the board and win. It failed. A lot. Days of tweaking with the deck, it was losing to everything. It didn't matter how good it was a clearing the board, every deck more than had the capability of rebuilding board control. And then all of those dragons costing 8 and 9 on my hand were just expensive crap. I gave up.
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Playing with a makeshit zoolock, at rank 15, I saw another Priest try a dragon deck. The match didn't last long (and I think I won), but I saw an emphasis on the middle range dragons. It had priest staples like auchenai (which I don't like) and then some dragons sprinkled. The plan seemed to be taking advantage of the early 2/3 whelp and then buffing the dragon sorcerer thingie that gets +1/+1 when target with a spell. I liked the idea, but not the deck. So went back.
First I decided I needed a good, solid Priest base that didn't relied on comboing cards. So 2 shadow words: pain; 1 shadow word: death; 2 clerics; 2 holy smithe; 2 power word: shield, 2 thoughtsetals, 2 azure drakes and 2 sludge belchers. Now, instead of trying to fit the priest on the dragons, I'd look for dragons for the priest:
Whelp is a no-brainer. With enough dragons on deck, it is a zombie chow without giving your oponent health, so there it went, 2 of them.
Next the blackwing technician and corruptors, at first to keep the deck honest in relation to my plan torwards dragons, but really, they're the heart of the deck.
Then the dragon themselves. Dragonkin Sorcerer and Hungry Dragon both sound clunky, depending on favorable situations to work properly, so I discarded both.
Dragonfaerie at first it's a bad choice because it can be healed, but it actually is a solid 3/2 card that helps a lot against mage, druids, shamans and warlock. At worst, it trades with almost anything turn 2 can provide and that's already a lot.
Volcanic drake came next (at first because he was the only one left) and then for the last slot it was Chromaggus, because I needed something I saw as a solid finisher.
I went from ranking 15 to 11 with this deck without losing a single match.
So I am happy, all right, but now at rank 11, my win rate went from 100% to 50% and I going up and down in stars without making any progress.
So I figured I was losing to facehunters despite the sludge belcher. Hunter would always win by little, using his last cards, but he would always win nonetheless. So I decided to change Chromaggus for Alexzastra so I can rebuild back to 15. It worked. One card change and my win rate against face hunter went from almost never to the regular 50%. Good enough.
But then a particular deck was making me lose every single time: demonlock. Mine is a slow deck, so once Jaxxus hit (and it does every single time because every match both players almost deck out), it's over. So I made the last changes: out with holy smites because my early creature game is very strong already and in with 2 dethlords.
Dethlords, of course, roflstomp hunters (I almost never lose to them now, need to be very unlucky to lose) and they have a chance to bring Jaraxxus on the field where it is a lonely 3/15 creature and not an instalose. Still, this is my worst matchup by far, but I feel I could improve it by trading the holy novas by lightbomb. Only I have none of those.
And so I went with my neat little homebrew deck and I just hit the ranking 10. On top of that, that very same match marked 500 wins as priest.
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tl:dr: homebrewed dragon priest deck is making me like this game again.
Power Word: Shield × 2
Northshire Cleric × 2
Twilight Whelp × 2
Shadow Word: Pain × 2
Faerie Dragon × 2
Shadow Word: Death × 1
Thoughtsteal × 2
Blackwing Technician × 2
Deathlord × 2
Holy Nova × 2
Azure Drake × 2
Blackwing Corruptor × 2
Sludge Belcher × 2
Volcanic Drake × 2
Rend Blackhand × 1
Alexstrasza × 1
Mind Control × 1
This is the list. What I would change if I had the cards: Possibly take out mind control for Ysera to give me one more win condition (instad of waiting for the opponent to fabricate one for me on those long control matches) and take out Rend Blackhand for Sylvannas.
(if I get any card name wrong, it's because I play the portuguese version)
Ever since I downloaded this accursed game, I am trying to play Priest. Lacking a lot of key cards (lightbomb, cabal shadow prisestess, for example); this wasn't the most pleasant of journeys.
After buying BRM, I tried to do a dragon deck since my 2 of my few legendaries are Alexz and Oxyia (no Ysera, for example). My plan was a full control deck that would later dump the big bad dragons on the board and win. It failed. A lot. Days of tweaking with the deck, it was losing to everything. It didn't matter how good it was a clearing the board, every deck more than had the capability of rebuilding board control. And then all of those dragons costing 8 and 9 on my hand were just expensive crap. I gave up.
-
Playing with a makeshit zoolock, at rank 15, I saw another Priest try a dragon deck. The match didn't last long (and I think I won), but I saw an emphasis on the middle range dragons. It had priest staples like auchenai (which I don't like) and then some dragons sprinkled. The plan seemed to be taking advantage of the early 2/3 whelp and then buffing the dragon sorcerer thingie that gets +1/+1 when target with a spell. I liked the idea, but not the deck. So went back.
First I decided I needed a good, solid Priest base that didn't relied on comboing cards. So 2 shadow words: pain; 1 shadow word: death; 2 clerics; 2 holy smithe; 2 power word: shield, 2 thoughtsetals, 2 azure drakes and 2 sludge belchers. Now, instead of trying to fit the priest on the dragons, I'd look for dragons for the priest:
Whelp is a no-brainer. With enough dragons on deck, it is a zombie chow without giving your oponent health, so there it went, 2 of them.
Next the blackwing technician and corruptors, at first to keep the deck honest in relation to my plan torwards dragons, but really, they're the heart of the deck.
Then the dragon themselves. Dragonkin Sorcerer and Hungry Dragon both sound clunky, depending on favorable situations to work properly, so I discarded both.
Dragonfaerie at first it's a bad choice because it can be healed, but it actually is a solid 3/2 card that helps a lot against mage, druids, shamans and warlock. At worst, it trades with almost anything turn 2 can provide and that's already a lot.
Volcanic drake came next (at first because he was the only one left) and then for the last slot it was Chromaggus, because I needed something I saw as a solid finisher.
I went from ranking 15 to 11 with this deck without losing a single match.
So I am happy, all right, but now at rank 11, my win rate went from 100% to 50% and I going up and down in stars without making any progress.
So I figured I was losing to facehunters despite the sludge belcher. Hunter would always win by little, using his last cards, but he would always win nonetheless. So I decided to change Chromaggus for Alexzastra so I can rebuild back to 15. It worked. One card change and my win rate against face hunter went from almost never to the regular 50%. Good enough.
But then a particular deck was making me lose every single time: demonlock. Mine is a slow deck, so once Jaxxus hit (and it does every single time because every match both players almost deck out), it's over. So I made the last changes: out with holy smites because my early creature game is very strong already and in with 2 dethlords.
Dethlords, of course, roflstomp hunters (I almost never lose to them now, need to be very unlucky to lose) and they have a chance to bring Jaraxxus on the field where it is a lonely 3/15 creature and not an instalose. Still, this is my worst matchup by far, but I feel I could improve it by trading the holy novas by lightbomb. Only I have none of those.
And so I went with my neat little homebrew deck and I just hit the ranking 10. On top of that, that very same match marked 500 wins as priest.
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tl:dr: homebrewed dragon priest deck is making me like this game again.
Power Word: Shield × 2
Northshire Cleric × 2
Twilight Whelp × 2
Shadow Word: Pain × 2
Faerie Dragon × 2
Shadow Word: Death × 1
Thoughtsteal × 2
Blackwing Technician × 2
Deathlord × 2
Holy Nova × 2
Azure Drake × 2
Blackwing Corruptor × 2
Sludge Belcher × 2
Volcanic Drake × 2
Rend Blackhand × 1
Alexstrasza × 1
Mind Control × 1
This is the list. What I would change if I had the cards: Possibly take out mind control for Ysera to give me one more win condition (instad of waiting for the opponent to fabricate one for me on those long control matches) and take out Rend Blackhand for Sylvannas.
I don't know how slow Priest decks can function without having Lightbombs these days. Too many Patrons and Zoos running around to have Holy Nova be that good by itself.
I would definitely put in a Lightbomb in that deck for one of the Thoughtsteals. Faerie Dragon is also super iffy in that deck, just seems like you are putting that card into to meet the Dragon quote when that card is just going to get eat up by just about anything on Ladder these days. Can't even buff it up with Power Word or heal it up like you can with a Welp.
I would definitely put in a Lightbomb in that deck for one of the Thoughtsteals. Faerie Dragon is also super iffy in that deck, just seems like you are putting that card into to meet the Dragon quote when that card is just going to get eat up by just about anything on Ladder these days. Can't even buff it up with Power Word or heal it up like you can with a Welp.
I stand by dragon faerie. She kills small stuff and helps to kill big stuff. It can't be killed by almost nothing that isn't a creature bumping into it and that is all I ask of a 2 cost creature. It helps to stabilize an early board with amazing efficiency.
And lightbomb, yeah, I need, don't have it.
And lightbomb, yeah, I need, don't have it.
Namerson23
Member
Just went 5-3 in arena and in my pack was a Flame Leviathan (is this thing even good). So I got super excited and decided to spend my last 125 coins on a classic pack and got a Archmage Antonidas. Now I'm just on a pack opening high so I decided to buy 19.99 worth of packs...and each pack was mostly one rare and all commons. Should've known better than to spend real money ugh
That's how they get you
And no Leviathan is pure ass, got one from the arena reward bags myself recently. Trash it if you need the dust
toddhunter
Member
Play hobgoblin yolo paladin. It isn't quite as good as face hunter, but it will get you wins fast.
Viagame #3 will have Savjz and Frodan as main casters and Lothar and Gnimsh as secondary casters. That's considerably worse than last time.
The announcement graphic makes it sound like Lothar and Gnimsh will be casting in Polish too. I don't see how they can keep that up if they're also going to be secondary commentators for the main stream, but it'll be kind of cool to hear if Gnimsh is as awkward in Polish as he is in English.
The announcement graphic makes it sound like Lothar and Gnimsh will be casting in Polish too. I don't see how they can keep that up if they're also going to be secondary commentators for the main stream, but it'll be kind of cool to hear if Gnimsh is as awkward in Polish as he is in English.
Raging Worgen > Kill worgen & Kill Ogre (The value for this card to kill the two most dangerous minions on his board is amazing.)Curious how you'd play this arena turn if you'd already seen two Consecrates.
I went Raging Worgen into 1/1 then face, ping Worgen, Egg token into Ogre Brute, and Sunfury into 1/1, playing the Yeti, thinking he didn't have the Consecrate. Naturally, he topdecked it, then won the long game on the back of a turn sequence like Holy Light>Antique Healbot>Lay on Hands, which I was poorly equipped to handle because my deck was awful.
Sunfury > Kill 1/1
Nerub Spider > Face (someone else swaped the Sunfury & Spider's attacks, but I would want the 2 damage on face, I value face damage when top decking and it looks like I can control the board for a few turns. That doesn't make mine the right play, but the difference is worth pointing out.)
Hero Power > Kill 1/1
Play Yeti.
You clear the board and will have plenty left over no matter what he draws.
Flame leviathon has potential. It's rated very highly for Arena and a lot of pro gamers tried it out when gvg was first released. Both of those things usually means it has a niche that can be exploited in the right conditions. My guess is that it would fit into a more control based mech mage, but the cards don't exist for such a thing yet.
If you're hard up for dust Flame Leviathon can be dusted. It's fun and has potential to be powerful though.
Super Nothing
Member
I disagree that Flame Leviathan would work in a control version of Mech Mage. Mech Mage's biggest weakness is that it can be almost impossible to recover from getting board wiped since it doesn't run a lot of (if any) card draw. Randomly throwing in 2 damage to your board is very likely to be devastating. It's just not worth the risk of wiping out your own guys. Outside of of that, Dr. Boom is strictly better than Flame Leviathan. The only advantage that FL has over Dr. Boom is that its cost can be reduced by Mech Warper. And as long as Dr. Boom is as ubiquitous as he is, BGH will be teched into most decks, making FL's 7/7 body not as threatening.
FL doesn't belong in any version of the current mech mage. It doesn't belong in any aggro decks at all for that matter. A control mech mage, which would be totally different than the current rushy deck. If it's a control deck it is obviously going to run a load of card draw.
FL isn't a tech card either. I wouldn't tech it into anything. Black Knight, BGH, and Kezan Mystic are tech cards.
In a future where 300+ more cards are released, a 7 drop that rates highly in Arena Rankings and belongs to a pretty strong tribe of cards could very well be usable in constructed. It isn't right now, but it might catch up later.
Remember that Archmage Antonidas was thought to be useless and far too slow before spare parts existed. Now he is a staple in mech mage and pulls close games out of the fire.
I have the same thought process with Onyxia. She is pretty much useless, but Dragon's are an emerging tribe so I will wait and see before dusting her. She might be the staple in some future deck.
But the Mech tribe, especially in Mage, is entirely based around gaining tempo and early board control. Flame Leviathan does the polar opposite of that - its body is a War Golem, neither an early game nor a tempo card, and its completely random on-draw effect straight up counteracts the tribe's gameplan. It's highly unlikely that Blizzard would introduce alternative heavy control options into the tribe, diluting its character, when dragons already fulfill that exact purpose.
Also it's a mistake to take its Heartharena rating at face value, the sample size is notably small and it's accompanied by a variety of theories straight from the site's operators.
Also it's a mistake to take its Heartharena rating at face value, the sample size is notably small and it's accompanied by a variety of theories straight from the site's operators.
Super Nothing
Member
I never said that FL was a tech card, I said that Big Game Hunter is a tech card that is currently in a lot of decks because of Dr. Balance. BGH being run as a tech card makes FL that much worse.
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