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Hearthstone |OT3| Preparing for the Ball of Spiders Meta

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M

Mobius and pet octopus

Member
Cider X said:
Another player misses attacks with dank meme deck in a tournament. Why bring the deck if you can't do the math fast?
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He did miss an attack... one irrelevant attack. Also, are you kidding? Even if you took the whole 90 seconds, you'd probably not see the optimal play even if you're amazing at math. And that is because so many possible outcomes. Now, of course you don't have 90 seconds because of the length of the animations.

So are you really going to not take one of the best meta decks in the game because you might miss an attack on a really complicated turn? Maybe you're just sitting on the sidelines and just second guessing top players in the game from the luxurious position to do so.
 
D

Dahbomb

Member
Yeah that play was pretty hard especially with all those Boom bots and Shredders in there. You kinda just have to throw your stuff on to the board and see what happens.
 
D

Dahbomb

Member
BlackBuzzard said:
Yep it sums up Hearthstone meta atm. Priest and Paladin non existant and Shaman wins some games if lucky.
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Paladin actually did a lot of work this tournament.

Right now the status of Hearthstone is this:

Top 3 are easily Hunter, Warrior and Warlock. Hunter has Midrange/Face/Hybrid variants, Warlock has Midrange Zoolock/Handlock and Warrior has Control Warrior/Grim Patron.

Next up are Druid and Mage. Druid has Ramp/Combo while Mage had Freeze/Tempo. These are strong decks but not in the same tier as the top 3 classes IMO.

After that the classes don't really matter. Yeah Paladin can work but it's too reactive just like Priest. Yeah Oil Rogue can do damage but again... can get wrecked. Mech Shaman can wreck but too inconsistent.


And everyone puts Dr Balanced in their decks (Control Warrior, Zoolock, Warlock, Tempo Mage, Midrange Hunter, Druids etc) because it's a fair and balanced card.
 
B

BraXzy

Member
Haha wow! This is the second free pack I've opened recently that contained a legendary and an epic. I am gonna stop doing Arena completely and throw my coins at this xD

Also, I just had an amazingly lucky finish to win a game in ranked just now. I was down to 2 hp, both of us are Warlocks. He had a harvest golem and a fire imp. I had a Knife juggler and a Haunted Creeper. He had 7 HP so I was pretty much screwed. I couldn't use my hero power since I'd kill myself so I had to rely on whatever I drew.

Somehow, I managed to draw an Abusive Sergeant. I drop him and gave the +2 attack to my creeper, which was now at 3 - 3. As I did this, I realised that even if I cleared his two cards, the Harvest Golem would leave its Deathrattle replacement with enough damage to kill me so it was game over. In the same moment, Knife Juggler took out one of his trusty knives and tossed it right at the opposite heroes face. And then I realised I had won :D
 
P

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Wow, just had an interaction I haven't seen before. Got flamewaker from unstable portal(lol) and played it against a hunter that used snipe(what the fuck) that also kezan'd my mirror entity.

My Flamewaker died and it copied a 2/0 for him which also died.
 
M

Milennia

Member
Dahbomb said:
Paladin actually did a lot of work this tournament.

Right now the status of Hearthstone is this:

Top 3 are easily Hunter, Warrior and Warlock. Hunter has Midrange/Face/Hybrid variants, Warlock has Midrange Zoolock/Handlock and Warrior has Control Warrior/Grim Patron.

Next up are Druid and Mage. Druid has Ramp/Combo while Mage had Freeze/Tempo. These are strong decks but not in the same tier as the top 3 classes IMO.

After that the classes don't really matter. Yeah Paladin can work but it's too reactive just like Priest. Yeah Oil Rogue can do damage but again... can get wrecked. Mech Shaman can wreck but too inconsistent.


And everyone puts Dr Balanced in their decks (Control Warrior, Zoolock, Warlock, Tempo Mage, Midrange Hunter, Druids etc) because it's a fair and balanced card.
Click to expand...
At sub rank 5 (i am at 2 atm NA) druid just gets shit on by everything and the tempo mage decks are barely existent as they are easily readable and as such countered almost passively if they get shit rng which seems to be most of my games.

I have actually been seeing paladin the most as of the last few days, basically just that and hunter with some handlock.

The handlocks are a bitch to play against so i swap between paladin/CW/and some random shit like rogue, the problem is handlock AND hunter being about even in popularity for my laddering experience, making deck choice extremely difficult.

As most hunters are midrange at this point, that would tunnel that decision straight into face hunter, but i hate playing the deck, so i make shit hard on myself basically.
 
D

Dahbomb

Member
Was mostly talking about tournament play.

The reason why there are only Hunters, Warlocks and Warriors at sub rank 5 Ladder because they are the best like I said. It's not that Druids/Mages are bad but they are strictly worse than the other 3 and hence get far less play (why play the 2nd best when you can play the best etc).

Control Paladin has always been resilient and ever since BRM lots of people have been trying to make Dragon Paladin work or at least some variant. That's why you still see Paladin on Ladder a lot despite performance issues. Plus they have a ton of heals to survive the Hunter onslaughts.


Druid just went down a lot despite being insanely strong a while back. That's because Zoolock and Grim Patron both punish it hard and even Tempo Mage give it trouble. You basically only can play Ramp Druid these days but why play Ramp when you can just play Handlock...
 
M

Milennia

Member
Dahbomb said:
Was mostly talking about tournament play.

The reason why there are only Hunters, Warlocks and Warriors at sub rank 5 Ladder because they are the best like I said. It's not that Druids/Mages are bad but they are strictly worse than the other 3 and hence get far less play (why play the 2nd best when you can play the best etc).

Control Paladin has always been resilient and ever since BRM lots of people have been trying to make Dragon Paladin work or at least some variant. That's why you still see Paladin on Ladder a lot despite performance issues. Plus they have a ton of heals to survive the Hunter onslaughts.


Druid just went down a lot despite being insanely strong a while back. That's because Zoolock and Grim Patron both punish it hard and even Tempo Mage give it trouble. You basically only can play Ramp Druid these days but why play Ramp when you can just play Handlock...
Click to expand...
but this isnt the case.

I said i see paladin, they are exclusively midrange varients of the deck, i also rarely see warrior and the only version of warlock i see is handlock, though sparse.

like i said, all i see are paladins, handlock and hunter for the most part.

I havent seen a single control paladin nor dragon paladin varient in my entire climb, even last season when i hit legend i didnt see these decks.

Midrange paladin has an awful matchup against face hunter, which is why seeing so many is surprising since face hunter has had a bump in popularity as of late.

The druids i see are just DOA to pretty much everything i play, and friends are also experiencing the same, its just bad right now, loses to all top tier decks outside of an rng opener.

Tempo mage also just drops to face hunter most of the time, also a good reason i barely see them, that and paladin who also just destroys the deck without much trouble.


Basically the paladins are here to counter the handlocks and potentially some of the midrange hunters/mages.
The handlocks are here to counter patron and some hunter varients/mage varients.

Patron is actually rare as shit on ladder, at least where i am it is, most likely due to people just being poor at it or arent comfortable yet. (handlocks also scare them away i would imagine, there are plenty of them, thought i have luckily not come in contact with as many as some friends have)
There are tons of control warriors around the 10-6 range though, i played at least 12 or so this climb.

I dont seem to be alone either in my experience as i watch tons of streams and see what people are playing against, just last night i saw gaara queue up into 6 straight paladins.
 
D

Dahbomb

Member
Again I would stress that I was talking about tournament play not rank 5-1 or wherever you are at the moment. It's pretty obvious what the most used decks on Ladder are if you have played Ladder for more than a week.

I was mostly talking about deck strengths in general at the highest level of play and at the highest level of play Grim Patron is ridiculous as is Handlock/Zoolock as is Hunter as shown by tournaments and by various player ranking lists.

Ladder play is cyclical and changes with flavor of the month. A week ago you saw a bunch of Mech Priest on Ladder, before that some aggro Paladin and then before that some dragon variants of deck. So it's more valuable to discuss actual deck strengths rather than what I saw on Ladder at this rank on this week of this month.


Edit: I said Control Paladin when I meant Midrange slower Paladin. It's a very blurry line for that class really between Control and Midrange (they all run very similar cards). So sorry for the confusion there.
 
M

Milennia

Member
Dahbomb said:
Again I would stress that I was talking about tournament play not rank 5-1 or wherever you are at the moment. It's pretty obvious what the most used decks on Ladder are if you have played Ladder for more than a week.

I was mostly talking about deck strengths in general at the highest level of play and at the highest level of play Grim Patron is ridiculous as is Handlock/Zoolock as is Hunter as shown by tournaments and by various player ranking lists.

Ladder play is cyclical and changes with flavor of the month. A week ago you saw a bunch of Mech Priest on Ladder, before that some aggro Paladin and then before that some dragon variants of deck. So it's more valuable to discuss actual deck strengths rather than what I saw on Ladder at this rank on this week of this month.
Click to expand...

"The reason why there are only Hunters, Warlocks and Warriors at sub rank 5 Ladder because they are the best like I said. "

That is what i am responding to.

Because it is not the case currently.

Ladder play is actually much more straight forward and similar to tournament meta than you may think if all you saw weeks ago were mech priest and aggro paladin etc., as whatever does well in tournaments is obviously played on ladder and whatever hits rank 1 that week will be practiced on ladder and eventually played at some point, as made example by trump playing the rank 1 paladin list , dragon warrior etc.

One isnt necessarily farther ahead than the other and there are many examples backing that claim, the biggest one being patron warriors existence.
 
D

Dahbomb

Member
Milennia said:
"The reason why there are only Hunters, Warlocks and Warriors at sub rank 5 Ladder because they are the best like I said. "

That is what i am responding to.

Because it is not the case currently.
Click to expand...
You are basically just disagreeing with Warrior on there as you agree that Hunter and Warlock are top 3 on Ladder based on your post.

I would disagree that there are more Paladins on Ladder than Warrior based on my personal experience and the experience of others I know who are at that level or higher right now. Especially when you combine Control Warrior and Grim Patron together. But this is just my word against yours so it's hard to prove either way.
 
M

Milennia

Member
Dahbomb said:
You are basically just disagreeing with Warrior on there as you agree that Hunter and Warlock are top 3 on Ladder based on your post.

I would disagree that there are more Paladins on Ladder than Warrior based on my personal experience and the experience of others I know who are at that level or higher right now. Especially when you combine Control Warrior and Grim Patron together. But this is just my word against yours so it's hard to prove either way.
Click to expand...

Each experience is different which is apparent and i acknowledge that fact, i am stating that my experience is different than what your original post claims is the norm and people i speak with/streams of the same level are experiencing the same.

Paladin is a trend which is apparent, and i listed the reasons for why it is around and why patron warrior is rare, which would actually be the same reasons why control warrior would be rare as well at those ranks.

Even if it was common for me, since handlock is a dominant varient at the moment and face hunter has bumped in popularity/hybrid being a thing, it should actually be rare either way outside of people who are very strong with the deck.


Buuuuuuut different experiences in actuality are different experiences after all so it is in fact impossible to have a conversation about the actual ladder meta at the time, as you have said.
 
S

Super Nothing

Member
I was just playing a Malygos Warlock deck against a tempo Mage and I managed to clear his board and take board control for myself, but in his last turn, he hit me with Fireball + hero power leaving me with 1 health. I had a full board with Dr. Boom, both bots, a few imps, and some other random junk. I hit face with everything I had and was 1 short of lethal. I didn't have any damage spells in hand, and couldn't even play a minion like Azure Drake or Healbot because my side of the board was completely full. I clicked on Life Tap to draw a card knowing that it was going to kill me (I was dead to hero power next turn anyway), but the guy conceded before my hero power went off. Thanks for the win.
 
M

Mobius and pet octopus

Member
2 hour 12 win run with paladin tonight

I'll just post some of the highlights:
2 truesilver
1 consecration
sunwalker
pilotted sky golem
stormwind champion
tirion

And pretty good support cards to make a solid midrange/control paladin deck and ensure I got to late game pretty well. I lost once in a paladin mirror, where he just managed to get ahead through sheer minion dumps and then twilight drake + BOK + divine shield from argent protector = rip. I only had 1 bad card that sprints to mind, repetenance. Which at most removed 1 hp off argent commander twice... did nothing to a consecration. It wasn't irrelevant most of the time, but still pretty bad.

I seemed to face nothing but druids at first. Then nothing but paladins (like 5-6 paladins in a row). The final boss was a warlock who got rekt. Only one absurdly drafted mage, thank god. Double flamestrike and thank god his secret was not mirror entity.
 
X

Xanathus

Member
Dahbomb said:
You think it's good to run double Silence in Handlock? I have trouble fitting a second one in mine.
Click to expand...

Uhhh it's hugely useful in so many matchups, aggro AND control. I'd consider it a core card in handlock along with double watcher, mountains, moltens and drakes.
 
S

Sande

Member
I just attacked Anub'ar Ambusher into Sylvanas and the ambusher returned my minion before Sylvanas could steal it. Is it always like that or does it depend on who is the one attacking / which minion was played first or something like that?
 
B

bjaelke

Member
Sande said:
I just attacked Anub'ar Ambusher into Sylvanas and the ambusher returned my minion before Sylvanas could steal it. Is it always like that or does it depend on who is the one attacking / which minion was played first or something like that?
Click to expand...
They are triggered by the order in which they have been played.
 
M

Mobius and pet octopus

Member
Sande said:
I just attacked Anub'ar Ambusher into Sylvanas and the ambusher returned my minion before Sylvanas could steal it. Is it always like that or does it depend on who is the one attacking / which minion was played first or something like that?
Click to expand...

The deathrattle of the minion which was played first will activate first.

FIFO - first in, first out

So if sylvanas was played first, and both minions die at the exact same time, sylvanas would have activated first.

edit:
Beaten.

Good old anubar ambusher. Man, I still kinda like that card. I think I need to give it another shot now.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
I had an epic match Mage (Me) vs Lock last night.

He got Malganis out EARLY. Got rid of him. Then he dropped Dr Boom. Got rid of him. Then he dropped Jax and I managed to get rid of him for the win even with a healbot being played.

My savior was he proced my duplicate secret on sludge so I just kept playing taunts of sludge and annoy. It was fucking cray.

I was lucky he burnt some of his spells early on thinking he was gonna roll me because I had 3 HP for like forever.
 
X

Xanathus

Member
Haven't played arena in awhile and continued a deck which has Fel Reaver in it. I see people are still acting like idiots when this is played and throw away their cards without destroying Reaver.
 
L

Leezard

Member
heringer said:
How beginner friendly is Hearthstone now? Will I get crushed by people who already have all the top cards?
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You will. You might be able to grind out enough gold for a half-decent deck in a month or so, or quicker if you decide to buy cards. At the bottom of the ladder there are other new people that also have beginner-friendly decks as well as people with perfect decks that stay at rank 20 just for easy wins for their daily quests, so those people will just stomp you whenever they get a chance. It will probably be relatively fair until you get to rank 20.

Also, casual is probably less beginner-friendly than ranked.
 
H

heringer

Member
Leezard said:
You will. You might be able to grind out enough gold for a half-decent deck in a month or so, or quicker if you decide to buy cards. At the bottom of the ladder there are other new people that also have beginner-friendly decks as well as people with perfect decks that stay at rank 20 just for easy wins for their daily quests, so those people will just stomp you whenever they get a chance. It will probably be relatively fair until you get to rank 20.

Also, casual is probably less beginner-friendly than ranked.
Click to expand...

A waste of time for people not willing to spend money or grind like crazy then? Disappointing, but thanks anyway. :/
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
heringer said:
A waste of time for people not willing to spend money or grind like crazy then? Disappointing, but thanks anyway. :/
Click to expand...

Eh I have friends who just got into it, and they are having fun anyways.

Just do ranked, and don't worry about your actual rank. Just play to play aka to learn and have fun.

You'll slowly unlock cards, and if you learn what to do in certain situations a lot of the basic class cards can get you far.
 
V

ViviOggi

Member
Leezard said:
You will. You might be able to grind out enough gold for a half-decent deck in a month or so, or quicker if you decide to buy cards. At the bottom of the ladder there are other new people that also have beginner-friendly decks as well as people with perfect decks that stay at rank 20 just for easy wins for their daily quests, so those people will just stomp you whenever they get a chance. It will probably be relatively fair until you get to rank 20.

Also, casual is probably less beginner-friendly than ranked.
Click to expand...
Ehh, we've had a bunch of new people in the past few months who are now doing fine up until rank 15~12. Golden portrait farmers are an issue but not rampant enough to make breaking 20 impossible with basic decks, at worst they'll make for some frustrating but minor losing streaks. Of course people who've just been doing dailies for over a year now have a massive headstart on you in terms 8f cards available but you don't have to spend money to have some fun learning the ropes, plus there's always arena as a level playing field.

Like, Blizzard absolutely needs to take steps to ease in new players with how much the game has expanded but unless you're both an extremely competitive type (in the sense that being anywhere but the top, i.e. legend, isn't fun to you whatsoever) and also don't want to spend any money ever you can still get something out of the game.
 
L

Leezard

Member
It's definitely all right to play if you think it's fun, still, but you will start to experience unfair matchups past rank 20.

I wouldn't recommend arena to new players as they will probably have a low average win rate and they will get GVG packs rather than classic packs.

If I would have started to play right now I would probably buy Naxx or 40 packs or something, since I know I enjoy the game.
 
H

heringer

Member
To be honest, I played the game for a bit back when it was released. Even bought some packs. That was way before the expansions though.

I'm don't mind being top player at all. I don't really care about that. All I want is to be able to play other people and feel like I'm actually challenging someone, winning some, losing some. I just don't want to be frequently stomped because people have much better decks, you know?
 
V

vapor

Member
Had a pretty unexpected (and personally my first) draw last night...

I'm playing a weird, spell-heavy flamewaker deck that isn't very good, but is hilarious. When it works, its devastating, but it's too RNG-dependent to be much good. The other guy is playing a handlock (I think).

Anyways, he's ground me down to about 3hp, but he's below 10 as well. I'm holding a Pyroblast, with 2 flamewakers on the board. He plays Dr Balanced, gives me the turn.

Pyroblast to the face for the kill, flamewakers proc anyways, hit a boom bot which does exact lethal to MY face for the draw.

I lost my shit giggling, friended the other player and had a good laugh about it with them. We agreed the flamewaker probably shouldn't have proc'd after the kill, but it was pretty funny regardless.
 
D

Dahbomb

Member
Xanathus said:
Uhhh it's hugely useful in so many matchups, aggro AND control. I'd consider it a core card in handlock along with double watcher, mountains, moltens and drakes.
Click to expand...
What about double Shadowflame? I have tried using both double and single I am not really sure.
 
X

Xanathus

Member
Dahbomb said:
What about double Shadowflame? I have tried using both double and single I am not really sure.
Click to expand...
Typically it's between 2 Hellfire 1 Shadowflame or 1 HF and 2 SF. SF is better in control matchups while HF is better vs aggro. I run 2 HF since it's also better vs Patron.

Servbot #42 said:
Nice! can i ask why did you play sun fury? was it because you already had another taunt activators in your hand and had to play something that turn anyway? Also which deck are you using?
Click to expand...

I had another Sunfury and Mortal Coil and Mountain Giant, and I was going 2nd so I couldn't tap on turn 3 which means I either play nothing or do that. This way on turn 4 I could play Giant and then coin coil. The worry was damaging the giant which enables Execute but killing Unstable Ghoul would have damaged the giant anyway. This way I got rid of the taunt which allows the giant to kill something more valuable on turn 5.

I play Ooze because at my rank 50% of the games are vs Warrior, if there were more Zoo then I'd put Chow instead there.
IUG4g4u.png
 
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