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wiibomb

Member
If 50%+ of your opponents use the list religiously, it becomes the Meta~~



midrangeshamanf7s0q.png

can't believe there is a Harrison Jones there.. I though that was wasn't used outside control deck.

I can build that deck. Never thought I could use that harrison jones I got in the last pack opening I made
 

bjaelke

Member
So what ended up happening with the Arena changes? Any major shifts in tiers? I'm pretty confident that Mage is still number 1, but did the changes help the other classes compete against, say, rogue or Pally?

Shaman slowly crawled up the list. Mages still a distant #1. Had the pleasure of facing a few yesterday.

tXATVfq.png
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
can't believe there is a Harrison Jones there.. I though that was wasn't used outside control deck.

I can build that deck. Never thought I could use that harrison jones I got in the last pack opening I made

Essentially there are a lot of Spirit Claws and Gorehowls to be blowing up right now.
 

Yaboosh

Super Sleuth
If 50%+ of your opponents use the list religiously, it becomes the Meta~~



https://abload.de/img/midrangeshamanf7s0q.png[[/QUOTE]

They aren't just talking about popularity, they are trying to state performance.

Just because hunter is bottom of tier 3 on their list doesn't mean it got dumpstered by the cotw nerf.
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
Essentially there are a lot of Spirit Claws and Gorehowls to be blowing up right now.

Never been as good a time to play Harrison Jones or Swamp Ooze as today. Hunters are all running bows (and lots of traps to get more charges), Gorehowl is every damn where, Doomhammer is still in decks, and Spirit Claws are in even more decks than Doomhammer is. FREE CARDS IN THE MUSEUM.
 
I see TempoStorm's website has shit the bed. Guess everyone needed to know what decks to play post Yoghurt-Saron nerf and crashed it.

Never been as good a time to play Harrison Jones or Swamp Ooze as today. Hunters are all running bows (and lots of traps to get more charges), Gorehowl is every damn where, Doomhammer is still in decks, and Spirit Claws are in even more decks than Doomhammer is. FREE CARDS IN THE MUSEUM.

I don't have Harrison. I had to tech in a bargain-basment Ooze into my deck instead... feels like choosing those cheap, plastic-looking slices of cheese over some good quality Cheddar.
 

Dahbomb

Member
So what ended up happening with the Arena changes? Any major shifts in tiers? I'm pretty confident that Mage is still number 1, but did the changes help the other classes compete against, say, rogue or Pally?
Mage still god tier in Arena, probably by an even wider margin than it has ever been.

Shamans are a lot better now and are at least top 3 class. Rogue probably number 2. Priest still the worsts, Hunter still second worst but the non Mage classes are closer together in terms of power level and consistency.

I think Arena would be in a lot better place if they nerfed Mage and buffed Priest. But I think next change will be much wider in scope.


Are Execute and Yogg the only nerfed cards still being used in higher end decks
I still see Abusive being played too.
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
I think Arena would be in a lot better place if they nerfed Mage and buffed Priest. But I think next change will be much wider in scope.


I still see Abusive being played too.

If they do what they claim and start changing draftability independent of rarity level, then arena could be up ended entirely. If they do stuff like allowing Priest or Hunter more access to certain rare cards (Weapons or Spells mostly) it could allow lots more variety in arena gameplay. For instance it might be possible to acutally play a control game instead on only playing for value. We'll see, I have high hopes but low expectations.

Yes, I also see Abusive being played still. Zoolock still uses it as does the odd aggro/Divine Shield Pally. There really isn't anything else like it besides Lance Carrier, and that card is just less aggressive with the 1/2 stat line.
 
I'd like to see them innovate on arena, not just try to change the balance. And every card game now seems to be copying hearthstone's arena draft process. I know a few do it different like eternal and solforge, but I'd like to see arena change more drastically and visibly than just changing the drafting rates.
 
Turns out Spirit Wolves beat Deathwing and a 14/14 Edwin Van Cleef.

Barnes in Midrange Shaman finally carried me to rank 5. He is incredible in that shell literally the only miss is fire elemental, even Thing from Below is a 1/1 taunt.
 

sibarraz

Banned
I want to put Justicar on Midrange Shaman since is my favorite GT card and I always wanted to play it on Shaman, but I don't know which card replace from the optimized list.

At least the only difference of my deck with the TS one is that I play 2 mana tide totem and not 4:7/7
 

sibarraz

Banned
IMO constant nerfs will screw the game and fuck it up to no return, I'm more on the side than strategies should have some time to breath and find an ok spot.

There should only be one nerf in between releases to make the game more interesting and only if the meta is really one sided, for example now I will be ok with one more shaman nerf, unless the new edition is released in the next month or two
 
Pretty early to make these comments, Standard hasn't had a single rotation yet and there's only been a single expansion since the introduction.
Kharazan wouldn't have had nearly the same impact in an eternal format.

Wild if it were more popular would quickly be figured out. Any one deck in wild can't tech against anything because people play weird decks, standard decks, budget decks,...
 

wiibomb

Member
I just want to say that it would be an true nightmare if there are 1000 cards released per year...

just imagine how difficult it would be to get them... and that is only assuming the cards pulled from 1000 expansions work on a same meta
 
Pretty early to make these comments, Standard hasn't had a single rotation yet and there's only been a single expansion since the introduction.
Kharazan wouldn't have had nearly the same impact in an eternal format.

Wild if it were more popular would quickly be figured out. Any one deck in wild can't tech against anything because people play weird decks, standard decks, budget decks,...

Agreed. And the problems were having aren't with standard, it's with one class in particular. And once they lose both tunnel trogg and totem golem and thunderbluff valiant, the class is going to have to "evolve" or die.
 

wiibomb

Member
Agreed. And the problems were having aren't with standard, it's with one class in particular. And once they lose both tunnel trogg and totem golem and thunderbluff valiant, the class is going to have to "evolve" or die.

and may be that particular sentence (In standard, new strategies are constantly evolving) isn't really valid in a 2 month span, it is rather valid in a medium term.

I remember when WotOG started that everyone was running C'thun decks, those fell off for the decks built around June/July, with ONiK there were even new decks built, like discolock, and others were trully refined, like midrange shaman
 

sibarraz

Banned
The problem isn't the standard format, it was OniK who failed to make a significant change of it. I will wait until next year to say that standard was a mistake, nothing but trash
 
Damn this was a savage article.

This in particular:

Biggestlie.jpg


Biggest lie in Hearthstone.
"In Wild, there's actual deck variety".

I'd like to see them innovate on arena, not just try to change the balance. And every card game now seems to be copying hearthstone's arena draft process. I know a few do it different like eternal and solforge, but I'd like to see arena change more drastically and visibly than just changing the drafting rates.
Solforge bothers me because you get to keep the cards, and if you don't get the color/faction you want. :-X
 

sibarraz

Banned
I have this problem that I hate all the other TCG by default since IN ALL OF THEM their community has the need to remind you that this game rules because isn't heartstone:


Because you can enjoy it without spending a dime (lie)
Doesn't have RNG (This one for the most of time is true, but some games have a little RNG too)

The first one is the worst for me, the only game were I really felt that you didn't need a dime to have a competitive deck was faeria, and this is stretching it a bit. But I would love those communities to sell their games better, not with an "isn't hearthstone because actual meme from hs) is normal in the end since like it or not hs is the standard bearer for the genre, but still.
 

Mulgrok

Member
My Reno Paladin deck is still doing great against everything except probably Priest. It is actually fun to play, especially because opponents seem to have no idea what I am going to do next after I play Argent Lance on turn 2.
 

Ladekabel

Member
Token Druid still doing the work for me in the dumpster tier. Love the deck! Kinda regret not crafting Fandral earlier and instead crafting Xaril at launch.

streakunshh.png
 

Yaboosh

Super Sleuth
Belcher feels so much better than piloted shredder.

I guess I am going to craft a boom and immediately put him in all of my wild decks.


I want to try out some fun decks like murloc shaman and mech mage but those are so expensive for me since I started post standard.
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
Belcher feels so much better than piloted shredder.

I guess I am going to craft a boom and immediately put him in all of my wild decks.


I want to try out some fun decks like murloc shaman and mech mage but those are so expensive for me since I started post standard.

Mech mage was the first deck I can remember that had a defined "perfect" curve. 2,3,4 that if you got it won you the game and if you didn't, the game was acutally a challenge. I played so much of that deck back in the day. I bet there are maybe only 1 or 2 card changes you'd want to make to that deck with what has been released since. There aren't many good mechs to add (Gorillabot maybe) and not much else. I guess the deck might want to run spellpower stuff and Arcane Blast/Flamewaker but it doesn't really have space.

Its still a fun deck, but really tough to beat if it gets its curve (same as most Wild decks TBH).
 

Dahbomb

Member
Wild has different decks and classes but everyone is still running Deathrattles and Nzoths. Belcher has now become a top 3 card in Wild because of Nzoth, even Secret Paladin runs that now.

It's like every deck has a primary win condition (curve out, out control, out fatigue, out tempo) and then plops in a Nzoth as a secondary win condition. It makes it very difficult to not play Nzoth and the Deathrattles.
 
Zombie chow, shredder, belcher, dr. boom, loatheb...

more diverse? Many of us have played that meta for ~2 years.
Diverse =/= new. You'll see Yogg Druid, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Warrior, etc. in Wild along with the meta decks you're likely sick of.

Belcher feels so much better than piloted shredder.

I guess I am going to craft a boom and immediately put him in all of my wild decks.


I want to try out some fun decks like murloc shaman and mech mage but those are so expensive for me since I started post standard.
I crafted Dr. Boom and don't regret it. :)

Mech mage was the first deck I can remember that had a defined "perfect" curve. 2,3,4 that if you got it won you the game and if you didn't, the game was acutally a challenge. I played so much of that deck back in the day. I bet there are maybe only 1 or 2 card changes you'd want to make to that deck with what has been released since. There aren't many good mechs to add (Gorillabot maybe) and not much else. I guess the deck might want to run spellpower stuff and Arcane Blast/Flamewaker but it doesn't really have space.

Its still a fun deck, but really tough to beat if it gets its curve (same as most Wild decks TBH).
Mech Mage scares me more than Tempo Mage, I think.

The other day I saw a mech mage on wild, I laughed
I fought three this weekend.

Wild has different decks and classes but everyone is still running Deathrattles and Nzoths. Belcher has now become a top 3 card in Wild because of Nzoth, even Secret Paladin runs that now.

It's like every deck has a primary win condition (curve out, out control, out fatigue, out tempo) and then plops in a Nzoth as a secondary win condition. It makes it very difficult to not play Nzoth and the Deathrattles.
Exaggeration.
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
It's like every deck has a primary win condition (curve out, out control, out fatigue) and then plops in a Nzoth as a secondary win condition. It makes it very difficult to not play Nzoth and the Deathrattles.

This is spot on.
You run N'Zoth in every Wild deck because why not? You are already running powerful Deathrattles because the cards are really good (Mad Scientist, Haunted Creeper, Shredder, Boombots, Blecher, Tirion, Sylvannas) then you just find room for 1x N'Zoth and you're good to go. It's pretty brain dead, but it leads to basically every game going long because everyone thinks they have a chance to win if they draw the N'Zoth.

It doesn't always come to that most games though because you nearly always either win or lose before anyone plays it.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Damn this was a savage article.

This in particular:

Biggestlie.jpg


Biggest lie in Hearthstone.

I think what sticks out to me the most, and what I've wondered myself, is how they intend to handle synergies with the rotation.

Blizzard stated that their approach to synergies was to release 0-2 cards per set in any given tribe or archetype to try and ensure it wasn't overpowered. Their argument was that over the years, this meant that they'd eventually print enough cards to ensure that the archetype worked, but never risk making it a completely over the top deck by printing, say, four way too powerful cards at once.

The only exceptions they made to this were if they decided they wanted a major theme for an expansion, at which point that theme would get a lot of cards, but nothing else would (see Dragons in Black Rock or C'Thun in Old Gods).

But with set rotations, this means that these slow-but-iterative tribes and synergies can never actually get going, because as soon as they start working, their critical cards are torn away from them. Since Blizzard doesn't rotate anything into the core set, we just have a bunch of mediocre to useless synergies, or ones that are incredibly transient. We look set to lose our most successful synergy (Dragons) in the near future as well, and a big part of why that worked was that there were strong cards in the base set that didn't keep falling out.
 
Diverse =/= new. You'll see Yogg Druid, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Warrior, etc. in Wild along with the meta decks you're likely sick of.

Everyone is running all the strong neutral minions. That is not diversity. That is just slightly different flavors of the same decks, and we saw that for 2 years. All that has changed is n'zoth focus, which is just more another, perhaps even larger, step towards sameness among decks that drives down diveristy, not encourages it.

People had a problem with shredder, belcher, dr. boom being so ubiquitous, but it looks, and predictably, that the problem has gotten only worse.

I think what sticks out to me the most, and what I've wondered myself, is how they intend to handle synergies with the rotation.

Blizzard stated that their approach to synergies was to release 0-2 cards per set in any given tribe or archetype to try and ensure it wasn't overpowered. Their argument was that over the years, this meant that they'd eventually print enough cards to ensure that the archetype worked, but never risk making it a completely over the top deck by printing, say, four way too powerful cards at once.

The only exceptions they made to this were if they decided they wanted a major theme for an expansion, at which point that theme would get a lot of cards, but nothing else would (see Dragons in Black Rock or C'Thun in Old Gods).

But with set rotations, this means that these slow-but-iterative tribes and synergies can never actually get going, because as soon as they start working, their critical cards are torn away from them. Since Blizzard doesn't rotate anything into the core set, we just have a bunch of mediocre to useless synergies, or ones that are incredibly transient. We look set to lose our most successful synergy (Dragons) in the near future as well, and a big part of why that worked was that there were strong cards in the base set that didn't keep falling out.

I look forward to seeing how they handle racials with set rotations. I think they can handle it fine. For example, as important as twilight guardian may seem to a dragon deck, it may simply be replaceable with a non-dragon and a new dragon will strengthen the deck archetype in other areas.

edit:
Or, maybe dragons sits out for an expansion or two. I'm okay-ish with that. Netherspite historian seems contrary to that approach at least.
 

Dahbomb

Member
Exaggeration.
It's not exaggeration. The top 5 decks in Wild all use Nzoth. All the control decks use Nzoth, almost all the curve decks use Nzoth. Yeah you see those weird decks in Wild but that's not the majority of decks there.

If we are talking strictly about the "meta" of Wild, then it's obvious that it revolves around exploiting Deathrattles and Nzoth plus Loatheb to secure board.

Now as far as if it's better or worse than Standard... I think at the top end Wild is more balanced class wise (and I am certain that stats would back this up). That's shocking to hear but it's true. Having strong neutral options in Wild means that there is less class disparity. There's no Midrange Shaman exclusive tier 1 in Wild and there's no awful Priest tier class in Wild either. Best deck Secret Paladin has better counters than Midrange Shaman has. Control is more viable in Wild. Since control is more viable and games are slower, combo is more viable. There's more space to attempt experimental decks as well, I have had more success in Wild with experimental stuff because games can be slower and my experimental stuff are generally tighter due to more options.
 

sibarraz

Banned
That's an interesting point, what's better? a balanced game were all the top decks feel similar since they play for the most part the same cards, or an unbalanced game where at least it feels like there is some kind of difference between classes?
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
I think people saying the Meta in Wild is stale (ie that its the same as the previous years before Wild) definitely has a bit of truth. But since those cards give me the ability to play the kinds of decks that I find more interesting so I will live with it until Blizzard gives us the ability to play those kinds of decks more fairly in Standard (which lets face it won't happen until at least next year, or more likely never).
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I look forward to seeing how they handle racials with set rotations. I think they can handle it fine. For example, as important as twilight guardian may seem to a dragon deck, it may simply be replaceable with a non-dragon and a new dragon will strengthen the deck archetype in other areas.

edit:
Or, maybe dragons sits out for an expansion or two. I'm okay-ish with that. Netherspite historian seems contrary to that approach at least.

The issue is less dragons in particular, but tribes as a whole. Here's our list of current tribes:
- Dragons
- Murlocs
- Beasts
- Pirates
- Mechs
- Demons
- Totems

Most of these are jokes. Demons and Mechs worked at one point, but they don't anymore. Murlocs have only had one very particular deck that only uses two Murlocs. Beasts are successful to an extent, but again they had so much in the core set. Pirates had maybe a couple of weeks while people were still figuring Old Gods. Totems are actually hugely successful, but I'm not convinced they're going to work without The Grand Tournament.

If only a couple of these can work at any given time - and we can also extend this to concepts like Deathrattles, Inspire, Discover, Spell Power, Spells Cast, and other types less explicit tribes, you get really long periods of feeling like you're fighting very similar decks. Combo decks are similarly troubled and usually summarily removed. The deck types that always work are essentially tempo based decks with impressive statlines and removal capabilities, so you get that and maybe a bit of flavor put in from these other things instead of an ecosystem.

I feel that pushing the power into the class cards actually did a lot of good for helping in deck variety (as people will play these classes to finish their dailies, causing you to see at least some expanded variety), but it does feel like there's a need to try and support the next step.

Maybe the answer is from card design. Maybe the answer is from some kind of new Challengestone mode where each week you have to fit one of three deck building criteria to participate. Maybe the answer is a sealed format. Maybe the answer is just releasing more frequent sets and rotations. I don't claim to have the answer, but I feel that the community feels the variety issue is more biting each set, and they should try something significant to address in the same way they rolled out Standard last time.
 

Dahbomb

Member
That's an interesting point, what's better? a balanced game were all the top decks feel similar since they play for the most part the same cards, or an unbalanced game where at least it feels like there is some kind of difference between classes?
Fair question but I think that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Classes should have the tools to be competitive and varied which generally means having strong neutrals but class identity/divesity is important too.
 
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