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[caesar]

everything you did before the turns where they were played impacted the outcome of the game and the usefulness of those specific turns. you have to play around shit, you can't just brokeback your way through fucking games and expect to win.

Thats not how it works though, if the paladin stops you from getting board and plays mc turn 6, which they easily can through the use of the other secrets combined with muster/juggler/shredder etc, you lost. It has nothing to do with your tech, it's just a case of whether the pally pulled their strong eearly game cards or not.

The only way to reliably win is to play face druid and race them with fel reavers.

 

[Dahbomb]

The only way to reliably win is to play face druid and race them with fel reavers.

So the answer is to out aggro an aggro deck and then finish the game with FoN + SR combo.

Oh wait.

 

[caesar]

So the answer is to out aggro an aggro deck and then finish the game with FoN + SR combo.

Oh wait.

Yes exactly, the only answer to the faceroll is another faster face roll. Great meta we have here

 

[squidyj]

I realize all of this but for this to happen you have to be far ahead on board.

That's not always possible when the Paladin is dumping their hands + Divine Favor or Druids are ramping into their big threats early.

For MC and FoN + SR to not be a game winning play.. you have to be far ahead of them on board. You can't even be tied on board, because then you will lose.


And the only way you are going to be ahead on board against those two classes right now is to play an even more faceroll deck than them. Something like Eboladin, Face Hunter, Zoolock. So basically the games are going to be decided by who's Knife Juggler hit the best targets to gain the upperhand (another thing that is really lame) or who's Arcane Missiles + Flamewaker hit the best targets (or Unbalanced Esportal).

Guess what... that is EXACTLY what you are seeing on Ladder right now. It's all about who can one up each on the aggro/tempo department.

tempo mage, control warrior, dragon priest, they NEVER win the secret paladin matchup, amirite?

 

[Dahbomb]

tempo mage, control warrior, dragon priest, they NEVER win the secret paladin matchup, amirite?

I am skeptical about Dragon Priest and Control Warrior winning the match up. Not saying that they can NEVER win it but I feel that Secret Pally is favored.

A better deck against Secret Paladin is Freeze Mage which I have talked about already. But again just like with CW, people are hesitant to bring that deck when Druids are all around. So it just brings me back to the point that Druid and Paladin combined have a stranglehold on the meta along with other aggressive decks.

 

[ricelord]

tempo mage, control warrior, dragon priest, they NEVER win the secret paladin matchup, amirite?

i play control war most of the time and 80% of the time i lose to secret pally because if i don't have board control by turn 5 or 6, its game over. the other 20% they don't get MC until turn 9 or more and they lose.

 

[squidyj]

I am skeptical about Dragon Priest and Control Warrior winning the match up. Not saying that they can NEVER win it but I feel that Secret Pally is favored.

A better deck against Secret Paladin is Freeze Mage which I have talked about already. But again just like with CW, people are hesitant to bring that deck when Druids are all around. So it just brings me back to the point that Druid and Paladin combined have a stranglehold on the meta along with other aggressive decks.

I don't want to speak too much about CW but I'm quite confident that dragon priest is favored against secret pally. You won't take all the games but you'll take plenty.

 

[ZealousD]

If you're looking to beat Secret Paladin, isn't Face Hunter a better choice anyway?

 

[Dahbomb]

Since we probably won't see nerfs to these cards any time soon I just propose we try our best to find solutions/counters to the most common decks. I feel this is probably more constructive than just saying how strong those other decks are.

My suggestions to counter the Druids/Paladins:

*Zoolock: Favored against Druids, I feel it does equal against Secret Paladin. The stickyness of the Zoo board allows it to contest against Secret Paladin. In my experience, the match up generally boils down to who gets the better Juggles and whether the Secret Paladin has Consecrate/MC on curve.

*Freeze Mage: I feel it's favored against Secret Paladin and one of the better ways to deal with turn 6 MC. If you freeze the bodies then the impact of the secrets are nullified. Without any heals on the Secret Paladin, you can just stall and burn them out. Not favored against Druids but not unwinnable. Good thing about Freeze Mage is that it will do well against other aggro decks too but it will lose 9-1 to CW so Freeze Mage will never be the best deck simply because of that one match up.

*Grim Patron Warrior deck: Yeah you read this right. The new Grim Patron deck does decent against Druid because Druids have trouble clearing Grim Patrons and the Patrons pose a reasonable threat against Secret Paladins because of their smaller minions. This is a more midrange deck than a combo deck but it has same Whirlwind effects that can help you clear the Paladin stuff.

*Tempo Mage: Does decently well against both decks. Yeah it's an aggro deck to counter another aggro deck but it's still worth nothing as the match up is decent against both decks.

*Hunter: With Flares you can get some tech going against MC. The Traps can allow you to gain some tempo against Druids to win the match up and burn them down.

*Anti aggro Control Priest with double Deathlords. Might be the answer to the aggressive Paladins and aggressive Druid decks. Maybe you pull a MC from their deck using Deathlord denying the secrets AMIRITE?

If you're looking to beat Secret Paladin, isn't Face Hunter a better choice anyway?

I have played the match up and it's not a free win at all for Face Hunter. Stuff like Noble Sacrifice does a lot of work in the match up and if Secret Paladin gets set up then it can out race a Face Hunter. If Secret Paladin survives long enough for MC then they will pretty much always win. Also stuff like Competitive Spirit + Muster for Battle does a lot of work because Face Hunters will never bother clearing the tokens. Also turn 1 Secret Keeper can get out of hand if you also have some secrets in hand.

Basically Secret Paladin has the aggressive tools to keep Face Hunter at bay long enough for MC to be brought down and then become a huge threat that can finish the game quickly.

 

[BigJonsson]

So if you had Dr Boom, Ysera, Ragnaros, Sylvanas, Justicar what kind of deck would you build around them?

Dragon priest with Ysera, Boom and Justicar?

 

[Dahbomb]

So if you had Dr Boom, Ysera, Ragnaros, Sylvanas, Justicar what kind of deck would you build around them?

Dragon priest with Ysera, Boom and Justicar?

Control Priest although the deck doesn't run all of those Legendaries.

 

[ricelord]

hell i almost just lost to a secret pally and he only used one 1 MC, thank god for alex and shieldmaiden

 

[Trigger_happy]

I'm still waiting for Thaussarian nerf, he is THE otk combo enabler, not to mention that he restricts design space.

 

[Papercuts]

hell i almost just lost to a secret pally and he only used one 1 MC, than god for alex and shieldmaiden

The second MC is usually just a 6/6 for 6 that pulls nothing. Though coin into MC, MC, Boom, Tirion is always...uh, fun.

 

[zoukka]

Druid is like the cancer class now, sucking all the fun from everything in this game, not just brawl. Paladin is actually fine...

Spoken like a true MC paladin champ.

 

[Dahbomb]

Ok this new Midrange Patron Warrior deck is actually legit good. Been playing it on around Rank 4 and it's been doing work. Definitely very effective against this aggressive meta.

 

[homeworkfilms]

Try Freeze mage out to counter pallys after little luck with fatigue warrior. Run into 2 hunters with flare in 2 games. Ok fine I will just go back to secret paladin then. And win streak.

 

[irfaanator]

been adjusting my dragon warrior deck, added some twilight drakes and double brawl. been doing alright with it now, but havent faced the big boys yet

 

[Miletius]

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I still think FoN or SR has to be nerfed, if Blizzard intended the game to be about trading minions.

I actually think it's easier to nerf SR than FoN. I'd probably make it so that it costs 4. That makes it so that un-Thaurssianed Force Roar costs 10, and Double roar Force costs 14, making it pretty much impossible to land the double force roar (you'd need double innervate or at least one turn of Emp + Innervate or 2 turns of emperor. It also gives an extra turn against regular combo.

Roar is still a bargain at 4 as well. You only need 2 minions to get value from it, and more is just cake.

 

[ViviOggi]

Ok this new Midrange Patron Warrior deck is actually legit good. Been playing it on around Rank 4 and it's been doing work. Definitely very effective against this aggressive meta.

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give list

 

[bjaelke]

Maybe changing Force of Nature to 2 3/3 Treants would do the trick. It does make clearing with FoN a bit awkward at times, but also reduces combo damage by 2

Spoiler

without changing the soul of the card

. Obviously not a very radical change and thereby far from Blizzard's normal practice.

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probably this one listed above
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CR7WwaHWsAAc2ee.png

 

[caesar]

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Xixo's twitter DansGame

 

[caesar]

With regards to combo, savage roar is the broken part. Rarely actually see the full combo in fast druid, you just finish them off with all the trash and tokens you have on board.

 

[Lyng]

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I still think FoN or SR has to be nerfed, if Blizzard intended the game to be about trading minions.

.

They dont. They want a fast paced aggro centric deck where you go face and hope for rng....

 

[Dahbomb]

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give list

It's the Xixo list but I put in a Brawl in there for extra insurance.

 

[irfaanator]

seeing how bloodlust is 5, savage roar should be 4

 

[Dahbomb]

seeing how bloodlust is 5, savage roar should be 4

Savage Roar is fine. It's Force of Nature that is the culprit.

 

[voodoopanda]

I'm a f2p player who hasn't spent anything on hearthstone and only plays off-and-on casually, so I decided early on just to focus on one class to make it easier on myself. I picked druid & have played pretty much only druid outside of brawl/arena situations. I'd like some kind of a force of nature nerf. It's just so good at winning out games that it feels like such a handicap to play without it. It's really noticeable how it impacts my games. often it's a fun, tense back & forth game but then i just draw combo and it's over. Feels weird & not very fun, I feel bad for playing it sometimes cause it's such a top deck-->win situation.

I've played a bunch without it for fun but when I want to win it's a no-brainer. I'd just like the druid design to go somewhere more interesting & I fear having such a good combo might limit the design choices down the line.

 

[Zoggy]

why doesn't paladins hero power activate the mages mirror entity

the hero power says SUMMON!

 

[johnsmith]

why doesn't paladins hero power activate the mages mirror entity

the hero power says SUMMON!

Exactly because of that reason. Summon is not the same as play. Play a minion means you play a card from your hand. Summoning a minion is different, and can be caused by different things, battlecries, deathrattles, by spells, etc. Mirror entity doesn't work on animal companion for example, because it's a spell that summons a minion.

 

[zoukka]

Savage Roar is fine. It's Force of Nature that is the culprit.

It's actually neither.

It's coin/innvervate/thaurissan that enables FoN + 2 roars that tips the damage over the top and into the danger zone of Blizzards all seeing eye of banning all combo's from the game.

Can't wait for them to nerf FoN and Tinker/Flurry so we can fully embrace a combo free Hearthstone and bow down to Dr. 6.

 

[ViviOggi]

Cheers guys I'll give it a shot, I like the Brawl too

Xixo DansGame

 

[BananasWithGuns]

Savage Roar is fine. It's Force of Nature that is the culprit.

Ehh, I don't know. I think Savage Roar is a bit ridiculous, especially when you compare it to Bloodlust. You need three minions on the board for Bloodlust to be better than Savage Roar and it costs two more mana on top of that.

Savage Roar is just stupidly efficient.

 

[Prototype]

Force of nature savage roar is the only reason I play Druid.

 

[zoukka]

Force of nature savage roar is the only reason I play Druid.

Yep it's a dead class without the finisher.

 

[giapel]

Force of nature/savage roar has been around forever. Why is it an issue all of sudden?

 

[ViviOggi]

Force of nature/savage roar has been around forever. Why is it an issue all of sudden?

It has always been an issue

 

[Raytow]

Force of nature/savage roar has been around forever. Why is it an issue all of sudden?

Emperor Balanced, plus the new ramp minion from TGT I guess.

 

[zoukka]

Force of nature/savage roar has been around forever. Why is it an issue all of sudden?

Bigger combo's existed so Druid got a pass. Now that combo's are almost extinct, Druid and rogue will soon follow I guess.

 

[ViviOggi]

We endured months of 4 mana Unleash + Buzzard bullshit
We played through half a year of Zoo being the straight up best deck at everything
We witnessed a ladder populated by >50% Face Hunter

And yet Blizzard has found a way to beat their own record. 100% braindead curvespam every single game. Midrange is nothing more than aggro with a few bombs. Combo and Control have finally been restricted to a single deck each with below-average matchups across the board. Absolute lowest fucking point this game has ever seen, and on top of that with their insane Paladin commons every single expansion they eventually fucked up arena even harder than it already was. Out of 211 arena games last month I faced 55 Mages and 52 Paladins - this month it's 14 Mages and 32 Paladins out of 72 games.

Well done, Benjamin Brodius. With no game lasting longer than 5 minutes now literally everyone can join the tempo coinflip fun and drag their green glowing cards onto the board/opponent's face during lunch break. Deck slot issue is solved as well because you only need Aggro Druid and Secredin anyway.

 

[Zoggy]

lmaoo at this brawl.

muklas champ+maiden of lake+paletress on board. 10 mana

should've screencapped it

 

[Celegus]

lmaoo at this brawl.

muklas champ+maiden of lake+paletress on board. 10 mana

should've screencapped it

Just ran into a druid that used astral communion turn 1, then got Mukla's Champ from Pile On, 3 whelps, 2 bonelings as his start to turn 2... I conceded.

 

[dimb]

Force of nature/savage roar has been around forever. Why is it an issue all of sudden?

Early game druid was heavily enhanced with cards like Living Roots, Druid of the Saber, Darnassus Aspirant, and Savage Combatant. These cards provide an easy window for the combo, create targets that have to be removed to stop combo, but present a scenario where they have to be removed without dropping below a very unforgiving threshold. I can't even count the number of times I see double Savage Roar come out against me.

While many other classes saw hyper niche cards oriented around decks that are never going to take off (Dragon Warrior, Taunt Warrior, Lock and Load Hunter, Discard Warlock) Druid was injected with powerful universal drops across their early game.

 

[caesar]

We endured months of 4 mana Unleash + Buzzard bullshit
We played through half a year of Zoo being the straight up best deck at everything
We witnessed a ladder populated by >50% Face Hunter

And yet Blizzard has found a way to beat their own record. 100% braindead curvespam every single game. Midrange is nothing more than aggro with a few bombs. Combo and Control have finally been restricted to a single deck each with below-average matchups across the board. Absolute lowest fucking point this game has ever seen, and on top of that with their insane Paladin commons every single expansion they eventually fucked up arena even harder than it already was. Out of 211 arena games last month I faced 55 Mages and 52 Paladins - this month it's 14 Mages and 32 Paladins out of 72 games.

Well done, Benjamin Brodius. With no game lasting longer than 5 minutes now literally everyone can join the tempo coinflip fun and drag their green glowing cards onto the board/opponent's face during lunch break. Deck slot issue is solved as well because you only need Aggro Druid and Secredin anyway.

Kreygasm

Couldn't have put it better.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Looks like we're already back to non-stop complaining about meta decks.

 

[Lumine]

Patron Warrior had to be changed, I think most can agree on that. If Warsong Commander also had to be destroyed completely is another matter, but whatever. I agree that this is probably the most aggressive I've ever seen the meta. Though there's still Dragon Priests, Control Warriors and I see more Handlocks than Zoolocks. Lots of Hunters though now, both face and mid-range. And an unhealthy amount of Paladins, some mid-range, a few more aggro, but by far most of them are Secret Paladin. Oh there's plenty of Tempo Mages as well. And finally there's of course Druid and both the aggro and mid-range version run double combo these days. Barely any Shamans or Rogues. Not sure if I forgot any popular class/decks.

So from my experience that's at least 3/4 aggro decks that I encountered over the past few days. It makes sense though, Patron Warrior is gone (for now), so the aggro decks show up to take advantage of that. And they already were very popular. Which also makes sense unfortunately. Ladder is a grind, so people are naturally attracted to the faster decks.

I'm not sure if this is the worst state the game has ever been in though. At least it doesn't feel like a single deck completely dominates the meta which has happened before as well. Also, Grim Patron was only just nerfed and the meta is continuously shifting.

So perhaps in a few weeks it will slow down a bit again. Hopefully.

Maybe Mysterious Challenger needs to be nerfed first.

Also I agree that Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo is a little too much. With Bloodlust Shaman for example you have to really fight for board control and find the right moment to play that Bloodlust. Which then also leaves for a pretty satisfying win. With Druid you only need the one minion, sometimes two, often nothing, to survive. Then you can just play the combo and easily get 20+ damage straight from hand. More if you have a 2nd Savage Roar with an Innervate or if you played Emperor before that. That is clearly too much. For the same reason Grim Patron Warrior just got nerfed.

Looks like we're already back to non-stop complaining about meta decks.

Honestly, you're on a forum about a competitive game. Of course we're going to discuss

Spoiler

complain about

the meta in here.

 

[Kornflayx]

I wonder when Blizzard will bring out the first legendary spell. What would that spell even be? Would be cool to see

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Honestly, you're on a forum about a competitive game. Of course we're going to discuss

Spoiler

complain about

the meta in here.

I would enjoy discussing the meta, minus the excessive complaints and hyperbole.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

Force of nature savage roar is the only reason I play Druid.

Because DA is so strong.
You snowball off it

 

[Sande]

I just experienced what happens when a pirate rogue gets perfect draw and perfect juggles with ship's cannon.

I've never been destroyed so hard.