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[manhack]

Every once in awhile you actually get to outplay somebody, whether through their stupidity or your cunning. Last night playing against a bloodlust shaman while playing my Ivory, N'zoth, Yogg, Anyfin Paladin:

Early game trades to get tunnel trog and totem golem out of the way while he fills the board including 2 mana tide totems. I play Ivory Knight and pick forbidden healing because I am at 27 health at this point and the other 2 choices were shite.

He has a full board and bloodlust me down to 3 health. I play 1st forbidden healing for 14 health. He does 4 damage with from board and passes since his board is full(Draws 2 cards from mana tide.

I think for a second and then realize I've won. I play my second forbidden healing to put me at 30 health and pass. again. He overdraws the next 3 turns and I keep passing until he accepts defeat with a concede.

Moral of the story: Never go full Mana Tide Totem.

 

[irfaanator]

lol, sjow just lost to doomguard discarding two golems w/ a knife juggler on board

 

[Levi]

10 wild games today. 8 were against Priests.

I was the only one trying running the new card tho.

Back to standard for now.

 

[EmilioLargo]

I played daily challenges for a while and collected some gold (around 4k). Lately I really dig the game and bought the latest expansion today. Now I want to build a deck in order to play ranked matches and I have two questions:
1) Would the best way to spend the gold be investing solely in 40 classic packs?
2) I mostly played a C'Thun Warlock deck but really prefer the style of either Druid, Shaman or Rogue. Is one of those generally preferable/cheaper than the others for a beginner?

Thanks in advance.

 

[fertygo]

I played daily challenges for a while and collected some gold (around 4k). Lately I really dig the game and bought the latest expansion today. Now I want to build a deck in order to play ranked matches and I have two questions:
1) Would the best way to spend the gold be investing solely in 40 classic packs?
2) I mostly played a C'Thun warlock deck but really prefer the style of either Druid, Shaman or Rogue. Is one of those generally preferable/cheaper than the other for a beginner?

Thanks in advance.

1. I think if you want spend real money, the fastest way to catchup is buying the adventure, the card given isn't random and widely used in meta, you can dust the worthless one.
2. Shaman most popular deck is very cheap, you need Tunnel Trogg (card that acquired through League of Explorer adventure which is key card in most shaman deck.) the other 2 class is relatively more expensive, but C'thun druid is one of the most beginner friendly deck.

 

[RecRoulette]

Moral of the story: Never go full Mana Tide Totem.

Had a game once where I had Mana Tide and Brann on the board, then played Tuskarr which dropped two more Mana Tides. A fucking nightmare.

 

[Levi]

My testing so far is showing that Protect the King is fairly mediocre in Control Warrior. I cut Bash for it, my thinking was that if I got 2 or 3 pawns I could recover at least 3 health if not more, but losing the damage plus the Shield Slam synergy wasn't worth it.

Protect the King did really well for me in Tempo Warrior, but to be fair when I tested it there my opponents were a Zoolock and an Aggro Paladin; matches where you'd expect Protect the King to over perform.

 

[Dahbomb]

I don't see Protect the King being good in decks outside of Bolster Warrior.

 

[gutshot]

So what's the strategy for Heroic Chess? Just keep trying and hope you have a good draw and he has a bad one?

EDIT: Apparently the strategy is to post asking for help because after trying a couple dozen times, the game I played immediately after posting this, I won.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I'm working on a weapon based rogue. I include captain greenskin. I never drew him once so far in 5 games.

I remember when the meta was slow enough that rogue could prep+sprint and not die as a result of the tempo loss. Partially because they could use blade flurry to get back on the board. I miss those days.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Nourish is pretty good in the Malchezar heroic.

2 HP off on chess on my first try, EDIT: got it on my third try. It's basically mull to 3 pawns then pray you're gonna curve out for the next couple turns. Double stack bishops was what enabled it for me had more than 2 cards left in library.

 

[poppedcollar69]

c'thun decks are so boring

the only acceptable c'thun deck is a cthun reno one

 

[Dahbomb]

Firebat on Hearthstone... 9 months ago.

Just replace Paladin with Shaman.

Zombie Chow -> Tunnel Trogg
Minibot -> Totem Golem
Muster for Battle -> Tuskar Totemic
Shredder -> 4 mana 7/7
Fel Reaver -> Doomhammer (because 5 drops STILL suck in the game and honestly Shaman would still be playing Fel Reaver)
Mysterious Challenger -> Thing of the Deep (PSYCHE it's never god damn 6 mana)
7 and 8 -> Who cares game is over already but play Ragnaros if you aren't Paladin.


Never forget the god curve though.

 

[QFNS]

Finally downed the Heroic Chess. That was a sonofabitch.

You really have no options about the cards you need in the early game. 2 pawns in the opening hand for sure. Mulligan EVERYTHING else. You will probably want a Knight on T4 to clear the T3 bishop which happened to me almost everytime. You have to flood the board with pawns and start pushing out damage as much as possible. You cannot win a value game because his deck is gigantic and you have limited pieces. Keeping the Knights alive to continually use as removal ended up being my key to victory.

Let the knight tank a dmg, heal with the bishop and clear again. Then as others have said use the queen on far right as face dmg as much as possible. If she's clearing you are probably in trouble.

 

[Karsticles]

It certainly doesn't destroy secret pally, at least not Nzoth Secret Pally.

I honestly don't see a lot of N'Zoth Secret Paladin in Wild, even though I know it's an extremely strong deck.

Eh no TCG is immune to this. The meta fluctuates and some card types lose/gain power with it. If secret pally is still played it means Eater hasn't completely shut down secrets.

Oh sure, but my issue is that Secret Paladin will never not be stupid if they don't change the card. I think Blizzard needs to take some initiative here, because a few tweaks would leave Wild a magical place to play this game.

10 wild games today. 8 were against Priests.

I was the only one trying running the new card tho.

Back to standard for now.

I wonder if all the Priest players are congregating in Wild since they can actually win games.

 

[manhack]

Firebat on Hearthstone... 9 months ago.

Just replace Paladin with Shaman.

Zombie Chow -> Tunnel Trogg
Minibot -> Totem Golem
Muster for Battle -> Tuskar Totemic
Shredder -> 4 mana 7/7
Fel Reaver -> Doomhammer (because 5 drops STILL suck in the game and honestly Shaman would still be playing Fel Reaver)
Mysterious Challenger -> Thing of the Deep (PSYCHE it's never god damn 6 mana)
7 and 8 -> Who cares game is over already but play Ragnaros if you aren't Paladin.


Never forget the god curve though.

Fortunately the last few days have been much more interesting than Dragon Warrior and Shaman curvestone. At least a month of the Karazhan experimental meta will be fun. I think a lot of cards are going to be stronger than first anticipated.

 

[QFNS]

I honestly don't see a lot of N'Zoth Secret Paladin in Wild, even though I know it's an extremely strong deck.

I honestly think that a "fast"N'Zoth Pally without secrets, but still running the usual Wild suspects (Minibot, Creeper, Shredder, Belcher) is stronger than Secret Pally with or without N'Zoth.

The available answers to 1 big minion (ie the avenged one) are enough that you should be ok. Doomsayer(s), Truesilvers ( I think you need 2 and 1 coghammer), and equality (I run 1x and 1x doomsayer) + Consecrate. Its enough to get past the secret wall.

If they don't have N'Zoth on 10 its over. If they do have it, then its a toss up depending on if you have Tirion or have N'Zoth yourself. Being able to run 2x Uldamon, 2x Follow da Rules, and the clears instead of some shitty secrets is really worth it IMO.

 

[Dahbomb]

I honestly don't see a lot of N'Zoth Secret Paladin in Wild, even though I know it's an extremely strong deck.

Because all the Secret Paladin players are sitting with their golden portraits in rank 5 or higher.

I will say that in Wild people are far less try hard. Way more experimentation in general.

It's too bad Deathrattles are so out of control in Wild.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I honestly don't see a lot of N'Zoth Secret Paladin in Wild, even though I know it's an extremely strong deck.

I think with Barnes it could reach the point where just Nzoth Pally is stronger than adding MC and the secret package to it but then again you win so many games just off secret keeper + secrets.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I'm a fan of deadly fork. It's just providing a lot of extra damage, especially when I can just hit face. I've been able to use it turn 4, deadly poison it to 5 damage, and then next turn buff it with greenskin to get it to 6/2.

Speaking of pirates, they got little love this adventure. I guess swashburglar is a pirate though. But curator isn't drawing a pirate and zoobot is apparently racist against sea dogs.

 

[Peléo]

Been playing a lot of Arcane Anomaly in Tempo Mage, good results so far. It's nice to have another 1-drop besides Mana Wyrm that also benefits from spells. Unlike Mana Wyrm though, he is quite bad naked turn 1. Maybe Babbling Book is better though.

 

[Dahbomb]

Just noticed that Blizzard has not printed a card with "Charge" on the card text since TGT. In fact, they have removed two "Charge" cards in the game since then.

Looks like "Charge" is being put in the same bin as Inspire/Joust of terrible/failed mechanics in the game.

I do think Inspire is a good mechanic though.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Charge is fine on creatures that can't hit face or understatted to the point of being unplayable.

Agreed on inspire though, Murloc Knight is my favourite control finisher.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Just noticed that Blizzard has not printed a card with "Charge" on the card text since TGT. In fact, they have removed two "Charge" cards in the game since then.

Looks like "Charge" is being put in the same bin as Inspire/Joust of terrible/failed mechanics in the game.

I do think Inspire is a good mechanic though.

I just think there are only so many charge cards you can add in the game before it becomes too much. And frankly I'd kinda say they did that almost entirely in the first set. Every charge since then should have been or is niche, as in, you shouldn't be prompted to go face with it.

I remember when argent commander was really popular. At that time, only AC was one of the few charge minions played and it was mostly used for value, not to hit face. They nerfed it so now you kinda want to go face. What a weird time we used to live in with most decks running argent commander and novice engineer.

 

[Dahbomb]

Well they were better cards before so it's natural that they would get more play before. Novice at 1/2 and Argent at 4/3.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Well they were better cards before so it's natural that they would get more play before. Novice at 1/2 and Argent at 4/3.

And the emphasis was on value, not so much controlling initiative from turn 1. That really took off when reynad started the zoo trend we still deal with.

 

[BananasWithGuns]

I'm sure Inspire will come back at some point. Maybe in the next expansion. Charge deserves to be purged from the game though.

 

[QFNS]

I think Inspire is a mechanic they could make good cards with. But they need to make the cards they put it on better statted or have less drawbacks. For instance if you printed a 3 mana 3/3 that has inspire to give another minion +1HP or maybe +1Atk, boom interesting card compared to Shattered Sun Cleric. If you put that on a 3 mana 3/4 its instantly playable and probably too strong.

Inspire has the ability to be good but all the cards they put it on were so poorly costed the mechanic became terrible.

 

[Apathy]

I think Inspire is a mechanic they could make good cards with. But they need to make the cards they put it on better statted or have less drawbacks. For instance if you printed a 3 mana 3/3 that has inspire to give another minion +1HP or maybe +1Atk, boom interesting card compared to Shattered Sun Cleric. If you put that on a 3 mana 3/4 its instantly playable and probably too strong.

Inspire has the ability to be good but all the cards they put it on were so poorly costed the mechanic became terrible.

The problem was that every minion is basically +2 mana and you almost never want to play an inspire minion without being able to use your hero power because those minions have a target on their back

 

[QFNS]

The problem was that every minion is basically +2 mana and you almost never want to play an inspire minion without being able to use your hero power because those minions have a target on their back

Them having a target could be a good thing though. Make a taunt with inspire to buff your other minions or make a 1 mana 1/1 with inspire to do something cool. The design space is there, but they aren't exploring it for whatever reason. Maybe these cards are super broken in some way I can't see, but I dunno. They have printed cards that clearly strong in the past, no reason an inspire card couldn't be that way too.

 

[greepoman]

I remember seeing the discussion from blizzard about inspire and basically they had a lot of trouble balancing because of a snowball effect if they made inspire minions cost less. So they but basically erred on the side of caution (or gave up) and made them all overcosted. At least that's what I remembered.

 

[Dahbomb]

Inspire cards are insanely powerful in Arena. Some of them if they stick for 2 or more turns it's generally GG. You can afford to play a bit slower in Arena than Constructed (although that margin has been shrinking as of late and will shrink again in Karazhan).

Savage Combatant is a really strong Inspire card that people will remember how good that card is when it's used in Beast Druid. Turn 1 coin Innervate Savage Combatant is GG against a lot of classes.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I like inspire as a mechanic but the meta is just too fast to use them. Maybe if they printed more inspire cards they'll get a couple more in a good spot. Some of them are just not great and none of them are real bomb shells. Like if you get rag to stick around 2-3 turns, you've basically won in most cases because he pushes a lot of damage per turn. What if there was a ragnaros level inspire card. Lets say something like:

4/8, 8 mana, inspire: summon a 6/1 charging living fireball that dies at the end of the turn. Imagine combo-ing that with something that resets your hero power or that mage one.

This would also make that 3 mana minion that reduces your next hero power to cost 0 worth running. Nothing in the set makes that card really worth running even though it's kind of a good card.

 

[Levi]

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Maybe I should craft that to counter cthun warrior cause... cthun warrior needs to die.

 

[irfaanator]

Maybe I should craft that to counter cthun warrior cause... cthun warrior needs to die.

helps against nzoth too

 

[Levi]

Maybe I should craft that to counter cthun warrior cause... cthun warrior needs to die.

I would. Tinkmaster is my second favorite legendary at the moment. It destroys C'thun Warrior's win condition (can't Brann/Doomcaller a Squirrel, lol) and helps against N'Zoth Paladin:

I was at 4 health and Justicar ended up being the second to last card in my deck (N'zoth was the last card, lol) but he ran out of damage and he conceded after I played Justicar. Ashbringer would have won him the game.

Tink is even good vs Aggro Shaman!

When it was in my opener I thought I'd save it for Flamewreathed Faceless if I didn't draw removal, but I ended up having to YOLO it against a Fire Elemental. He ran out of cards and conceded a few turns after that.. I had Justicar on curve, so it would have taken a miracle for him to win even if I didn't have the perfect Tink.

 

[manhack]

Brings back memories when Tinkmaster was in every deck pre-nerf

 

[Officerrob]

Brings back memories when Tinkmaster was in every deck pre-nerf

Tinkmaster and Pagle, those were the days

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Brings back memories when Tinkmaster was in every deck pre-nerf

Tinkmaster and Pagle, those were the days

I never embraced these cards. Pagle in particular was pretty overrated imho. He was pretty solid back then though. I would have crafted tinkmaster eventually, and then dusted it.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Tinkmaster was my first golden leg and nat pagle my first leg overall

 

[NBtoaster]

Tinkmaster was my first legendary, he got nerfed not long after so I turned him into Ragnaros.

 

[Mulgrok]

the last time a guy used tink against me he ended up turning his brann into a squirrel, twice.

EDIT: he was trying to poly the 2 minions I had in play.

EDIT2: sad that hidden opponent identities in arena was a bug. I thought it was somehow easier to get wins during that period.

 

[zoukka]

Savage Combatant is a really strong Inspire card that people will remember how good that card is when it's used in Beast Druid. Turn 1 coin Innervate Savage Combatant is GG against a lot of classes.

That's because it doesn't have shit stats for the cost, like most of the inspire cards

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

the last time a guy used tink against me he ended up turning his brann into a squirrel, twice.

EDIT: he was trying to poly the 2 minions I had in play.

EDIT2: sad that hidden opponent identities in arena was a bug. I thought it was somehow easier to get wins during that period.

It showed unknown right? Yeah that was obvious bug. Who cares except for streamers anyway and thats like .000001% of the HS populace.

And I bet most of their complaints are paranoia lol

 

[thepotatoman]

Including Moroes in Token Yogg Druid has done incredible for me, going 12-4 to rank 8. A lot of that is because it's only a 1 card change from a very refined deck, but Moroes had a hand in like 5 of those wins. One of which includes purposely baiting out the Ravaging Ghoul of a Warrior so I could play my 7 1/1 imps without worry. I'm honestly a little shocked at how well he's done for me.

I can't wait to have him in my deck for Barnes. Barnes is going to be so good in token yogg druid, not just because any 2 body minion is kinda ok, but because a lot of minions in that deck will have active abilities.

 

[fertygo]

Only teacher and Fandral that will be good pull from Barnes in token druid

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

I'm checking Elder Scrolls Legends..

this game is almost Hearthstone but... boring? I mean, it is kind of bland, hitting the face of an opponent with a 8 doesn't feel good, the boards are the same and overall it tries too hard to be serious for a card game.

I'm still feeling good about HS jokey nature while having those glorious sound effects of the legendary cards

It's in alpha, so yea.... The gameplay has a lot more depth than hearthstone, really enjoy playing it.

 

[zoukka]

Only teacher and Fandral that will be good pull from Barnes in token druid

Some play Emperor. But yeah Barnes doesn't really fit that decks plan at all.

 

[jgminto]

Only teacher and Fandral that will be good pull from Barnes in token druid

And Thalnos.