Lurker > metroid composite

Whoa, just played against a really creative deck.

Turns 1-5 some face damage through soul fragment cards. Turn 6 Proving Grounds summoning two Troll Centurions (only minions left in the deck) that fight each other and deal 16 damage to face.

Turns 1-3 were fairly disorganized random weapons and spells keeping my board clear and dealing some face damage. One Watchpost delayed by a turn to deny me Vanndarr Turn 4. Turn 4 was marrow slicer (8 damage) turn 5 was Soulshard Lapidary (5 damage). 13+16 is 29, so one more damage is lethal.

Neat.

Ran into a couple people now running Speaker Gidra as their 3 drop into 4 mana spell for giant windfury (Kodo Mount is the really allin 9 attack windfury on turn 4). Turn 1 trogg, turn 2 Mark of the Wild--probably the same person or at least someone who copied the same decklist.

Lost to it both times, but I was also going second both times. Doesn't that deck just get run over if it goes second and Gidra gets cleared off?

Hmm...tuning the DH deck a little more...feels like it needs to be aggressive to handle quest priest, so I've been tuning it accordingly. (Battlegrounds Battlemaster, Troll Centurion).

Now usually beating that deck if I go first. (Going first is a massive advantage in Vanndar mirrors, though, so probably still a weaker deck overall).

It's probably also correct to just make my 2 drop Far Watch Post. (Card is just too good).

Quest Priest is the other deck with a very interesting interaction with the tavern brawl. I suspect Quest Priest is probably the best deck for running Vanndar, as I seem to have a losing record with Vanndar DH against Vanndar Quest Priest so far. (They just need to stay alive, play the quest reward on turn 9, and be guaranteed to draw shard on turn 10--their 1, 2, 3, 4 is a little worse, but Soul Mirror is a really good 7 against other Vanndar decks).

Oh yeah, for sure. Not hard to get a win. (I just copy pasted a standard deck to get a win before I messed around with building better decks).

Just...Drek'thar and Vanndar make for some interesting deckbuilding, and Far Watch Post also has a very unusual interaction with the mechanic of the tavern brawl, so I'm having fun with the deckbuilding.

Well, the tavern brawl this week is the "you're guaranteed to draw a 1 mana card on 1, 2 mana card on 2, 3 mana card on 3 etc".

If you just want to get your win and leave, make this your curve

1: (any decent 1 drop)
2: Far Watch Post (messes up the opponent's on curve draws--run 2)
3: (any decent 3 drop)
4: Drek'thar (pull out second far watch post and a scary 3 drop)
5: Arbor Up

If you want to meme, run Vanndar--guaranteed to draw Vanndar on turn 4. Guaranteed to draw an 8 mana minion discounted to 5 on turn 5. This was the curve I was running.

1: True Aim Crescent
2: Battleworn Vanguard (the 2/2 that summons two 1/1s when you attack)
3: Ace Hunter Kreen
4: Vanndar

Filled the rest of the deck with whatever 8-10 mana cards caught my fancy. Ancient Void Hound time!

Here's the list if anyone just wants to copy/paste but there's probably better 8-10 drops (Two lines cause GameFAQs, delete carriage return)

AAECAZvoAwrhzgPj1AOpgQSwigS0igSnjQTJnwTkpATvpASlrQQK87sDg8cD79UD
+NYDveEDlOQD/u0DzPkDgIUE2KAEAA==

The double watch post Drek'thar deck does beat this, however. If you suspect watch posts, keep your 1/2/3/4 in the opening mulligan so that they can't be cost increased, but you're probably still screwed cause your "5" which is your first high cost card probably gets cost increased.

Camden posted...

I'm more thinking of nerfing effects than stats. It feels like the obvious solution to 'Locusts is a problem' is to just remove Twinspell from it, but the fact that they jumped straight to removal makes me think they don't want the treasures to be functionally different than they are in duels.

Locusts is.....apparently not even in duels anymore. (Got removed before Kazakusan was even released on January 25th). Relevant patch notes:

https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/news/23765270/

TREASURE POOL CHANGES
Fireshaper, Ever-changing Elixir, LOCUUUUSTS!!!, and Conduit of Storms have been removed from their respective treasure pools.

(Also apparently it cost 7 mana in duels).

Camden posted...

I think Locusts was only the third highest win rate amongst the treasures?

The data you're probably thinking of is this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/t3s2wz/top_5_kazakusan_treasures_hsreplaynet_feb_28/

The top 3 treasures having a winrate of 63.4%, 63.3%, and 63.1%. All of these being within 0.1% of each other means I wouldn't put too much weight on which one is on top--they're all about equally as strong. (The gap between the top 3 treasures and the 4th best treasures is large, though. #4 is 61.3%, which is 2% lower than the top 3).

removing Locusts will just make those two even more likely to show up as choices so I'm not even sure this is a nerf for Druid versions of the deck.

Nah.... The top 4 is all face damage (with Pure Cold coming in at #4, and that's just 5 mana to deal 8 damage to the enemy hero and freeze).

Going from 4/29 burn cards to 3/28 burn cards is definitely going to be a nerf. Goes from 13.8% of the pool being a burn card to 10.7% of the pool being a burn card.

I would still like to see Embers of Ragnaros out of the pool, cause like...there's tons of board clears among Kazakusan treasures. The way you play around most treasures is that you don't overcommit to the board. And the way you play around Embers of Ragnaros is...to have a huge board. If you're playing around other Kazakusan treasures, you can't play around Embers of Ragnaros.

Camden posted...

Kind of sucks that it feels like nerfing the treasures themselves is off the table.

I don't see a reason why it needs to be off the table--some of the treasures already have different stats than they have in duels. (Mutating Injection costs 3 mana as a duels treasure, and 2 mana off of Kazakusan, for example. Beastly Beauty costs 5 mana as a duels treasure, and 3 mana as a Kazakusan treasure, for example. Bubba in duels is a 6 mana 6/6 instead of a 5 mana 8/8).

No reason why the treasures themselves can't be adjusted, since they're already different from their duels counterpart.

skullbone posted...

I don't even see how aggro beats them now considering they can completely erase the early game damage with double feral rage gaining 16 armor and then playing dragon swarm the next turn to clear your board.

Aggro beats them the same way it did before. Play Tunnel Trogg on turn 1. Their whole deck is spells, so you're about to get a wide board. Throw in some pump for the wide board you're about to get (voidtouched attendant or arbor up are good choices) and they are usually dead usually the turn after they cast overgrowth (turn 4ish). Not usually enough time for them to solar out a feral rage.

Certianly good Kaz is getting nerfed, though. Ladder was like...queueing an aggro deck that hard targets druid, and then running into control warriors, and then queueing an anti-warrior deck just to die to something else. The rock-paper-scissors was intense.

Hopefully the rock-paper-scissors meta chills out after the nerfs.

You know, the first time I read locusts, I didn't realize it could go face till someone used it on my face; thought it was a more expensive Bubba. Even after I realized it could go face, I didn't realize it had fucking twinspell. What a silly card.

I wouldn't mind if they also deleted Embers of Ragnaros at some point. (I think it's fine when used by Warrior and Priest, but the fact that Druid can solar it is kind-of silly). I guess they might just wait for rotation to get rid of solar eclipse.

Nevermind, found the ramp druids again; back to shadow priest?

Man, the meta sure did a 180.

Now I'm facing mostly control warrior and ping mage, and these matchups seem miserable for shadow priest. Lost a bunch of games in a row.

Was looking for something that was good into both; found quest hunter, but actually missing a lot of cards (2 copies of the epic secret and Barak Kodobane).

But also...Pirate warrior is good into them, and 50-50 into ramp druid for anyone still running that. Reluctantly re-crafted the quest and...it's been winning.

Welp, Copper Hunter has gone right back to underperforming. Turns out adding a few more ways to pull starving buzzard out of the deck, you can still fail to get starving buzzard before the last 7 cards :/

So...I saw a copper hunter list a while back (wild beast hunter with Defias Blastfisher, Stormwind Piper, and Starving Buzzard).

Had a discussion in the wild subreddit with someone else who had the same deck but a very different version of the build--led me to removing desert spear and clear the way--not enough rush minions to consistently trigger clear the way, and desert spear isn't great.

And then I put in Tracking and Leatherworking Kit--help finding Buzzard and stuff like that and...suddenly the deck actually feels pretty good and consistent? Like...maybe not a joke?

### Copper Hunter
# Class: Hunter
# Format: Wild
#
# 2x (0) Devouring Swarm
# 2x (0) Serpentbloom
# 2x (1) Adorable Infestation
# 2x (1) Alleycat
# 2x (1) Leatherworking Kit
# 1x (1) Overwhelm
# 2x (1) Springpaw
# 2x (1) Timber Wolf
# 2x (1) Tracking
# 2x (1) Wolpertinger
# 2x (1) Wound Prey
# 2x (2) Selective Breeder
# 2x (2) Starving Buzzard
# 2x (3) Stormwind Piper
# 2x (5) Defias Blastfisher
# 1x (5) Tundra Rhino
#
AAEBAYoWArsFudADDt4E2QnquwKghQOizgO50gPq6QPb7QPm7gPE+wPI+wOU/APBgASpnwQA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

I like the suggestion for battlegrounds to make poison more like divine shield.

Divine shield is infinite health for one attack.

Poison should be infinite damage...for one attack. (Currently it's just infinite damage).

Okay, so I saw even druid pop up on one of Neon13's reports, and was like "LOL, no way that is remotely good".

https://hearthstone-decks.net/even-druid-282-legend-ornis783-score-3-0/

Tried it out and.................immediately won two games with it. >_>

Guess it's good if you draw Wickerclaw. (2 mana 1/4, when your hero gains attack, Wickerclaw gains +2 attack).

I was trying to figure out what to play to target ramp druid. Messed around with aggro taunt druid, y'know, that deck I crafted a while back that went like 1-6. Went like...2-4, with one of the losses being to ramp druid. I also faced two priests with the new duskbreaker.

The deck is like...allergic to board clears, so if ramp druid puts in the spell that fills their board with 2/1 rushes (scale of onyxia) turns out they are not a free win. And priest with the new duskbreaker destroys aggro druid of course.

So........I switched to a deck which is less scared of board clears (shadow priest), and I'm on like a 10 game winning streak. Facing the mirror now, and they went first with a better start, so I'm about to lose that streak, but yeah, deck is super well positioned against popular decks generally right now.

Yeah, thinking of it as a version of Voracious Reader that doesn't come with a 1/3 body and doesn't threaten to proc more than once if not killed does put things into perspective.

Cause like...I can't think of any hunter deck currently running Voracious Reader, even in various iterations of wild quest hunter (where running out of cards in hand is a concern).

I still think there's going to be decks that want Furious Howl. It's probably better than voracious reader. But...not that much better.

Vicious Syndicate podcast, which includes opinions on all of the cards that were revealed up to the priest legendary (so everything except the two legendaries revealed today, horn of wrathion, tooth of nefarian, gear grubber, scale of onyxia, ring of courage, and drakefire amulet):

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/srrpz0/summary_of_the_2132022_vicious_syndicate_podcast/

Also, gotta say, among the 2nd and 3rd batches of cards? Zero dragons.

The first batch of cards being 57% dragons made me think there was going to be a substantial dragon theme in this mini-set, with lots of support, but...now that's looking unlikely.

We do know that all four legendaries are dragons, though, and that at least one of them (Kasakusan) rewards you for putting only dragons in your deck, so maybe that makes people run dragons? But...I could just as easily imagine people making decks full of spells in order to run Kazakusan.

Boomkin: It's like you get to pick Antique Healbot, or Fire Elemental. That said...no tribal tag, no real synergy with any currently successful druid decks. Still...maybe it just goes into ramp druid?

Pet collector: I mean, if you're playing big beast hunter with Guardian Animals, I guess this can pull out a 5 mana beast. I'm...still not that impressed, though. Compared to just playing a 5 mana beast from your hand you...get a 3/3. Is that worth it?

Keen Reflexes: Yet another variant on 2 mana swipe. More conditional than man the cannons.

Raid Negotiator: apparently it was changed since the spoiler video was made--now only the card you discover gets both choose one halves played. I think that lowers the value of this card quite a bit.

Dragonbane Shot: Only deck that will ever care is quest hunter. Maybe quest hunter cares?

Razorbane Sentinel: You know, I've noticed a pattern with DH cards in preview season, like "wow, thats a scary draw card" and then the scary draw card proceeds to see almost zero play. The bar for DH draw is just very, very high. So...I don't want to call this one a staple just yet, cause I keep being wrong about DH draw cards. Turns out every DH draw card ever is like...worse than skull and spectral sight. Maybe those will rotate, though?

Wings of Hate: I mean, if there's ever a token aggro DH, this card will slot right in. Token DH is somehow still not a thing, despite all the support it has gotten, though.

Furious Howl: I think this card is bonkers. 2 mana draw 3 has never, ever been bad. Book of Specres was goood. Fungal fortunes was so good it got nerfed to 3 (and even at 3 mana it's one of the best wild druid cards).

Battle Vicar: someone on reddit listed out all the holy spells. Wow there are a lot of trash holy spells in paladin--tons of secrets and nonsense like that; nearly all the cards cost 3 or less. This looks bad, even in a Libram deck (only like...2 out of 20 possible cards are librams).

Stormwind Avenger: hey remember that 3/5 medic that made a 2/2 lifelink any time you cast a holy spell? Yeah, that saw no play, despite having some obvious synergy with Librams. I don't expect this card to be much different.

Spirit Mount: Burn shaman is enough of a thing that 2 mana for spell damage+1 might be worth it.

Bracing Cold: Seems good. 0 mana gain 5 life basically; priest runs a card like that.

Shoulder Check: I mean, it's tradeable so it's by definition not bad. Pretty low value if you actually need to play it, though.

SI:7 Smuggler: Support for rogue quest.

Smokescreen: So...this card looks designed for wild meme decks piloted by Dane specifically. Don't expect to run this and win more games than you lose, but yeah, this card will be shenanigans.

Curse of Agony: Interesting card, and looks very wild relevant. It's a lot like bomb warrior, where it punishes decks that draw heavily. It also disables reno decks. So...you can play up to four of these using Tamsin Roame since it's a shadow card, and obviously fatigue scales very vast, so playing lots of these is very relevant. One of these is 6 damage in the deck. Two of these is 21 damage in the deck. Three of these is 45 damage in the deck. Four of these is 78 damage in the deck. Hard punishes archetypes that draw through their deck, like...anyone trying to play garotte rogue just dies to this in standard, similar for something like mech'a'thun warlock in wild.

Very, very techy card, though. Does nothing in several matchups.

Impfestation: For one less mana than Soul Mirror you get.......this. Why does this cost 6? Hellfire costs 4. I guess hellfire isn't one-sided, but Flamestrike costs 7 for 5 damage.

Hit it very hard: Hey, know what was one of my favourite removal cards of all time? 1 mana rockbiter weapon. It's back baby! Also some burst damage possibilities with this and Silas and soulbound ashtongue (burst damage wincons seem to be the plan with control warrior decks these days).

(part 2)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/8/AAAmNpAAC6jq.jpg

Images for all the non-legendary cards revealed today (part 1)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/7/AAAmNpAAC6jp.jpg

The hunter spell also gets you the cards immediately rather than next turn.

It's also a spell, which...might matter? (Resets your hero power if you're playing quest hunter and the quest is done).

GANON1025 posted...

Kazakusan looks very cool

I'll admit, I didn't expect them to straight up power creep archivist Elysiana.

Probably a lot less niche than Elysiana too--like decks will be happy to play it while they still have cards left.

Ehh...the warlock dragon is rotnest drake with discard a card stapled on basically. Rotnest drake is pretty good, but I don't think it's such a good card to be worth hurting your deck.

In any deck where discarding is dangerous for you, like you could discard your wincon, I don't actually think you want this card.

Decks that will want this are like...zoo, where you can just empty out your hand (if you have no cards in hand, or only cards in hand you're fine with discarding, the discard doesn't hurt you; might even help with discard synergy). Nobody's really playing warlock zoo right now, but...maybe this card revives zoo? IDK.

Not going to lie, not many of these are jumping out to me. The ones I think will see play are basically "well, it has a dragon tag, and there will probably be dragon decks after the mini set, so this probably goes into those".

Spawn of Deathwing: this is going to feel rough to play against but...weirdly I also don't think I want it in any of my decks? The random discard is really rough. Most warlocks right now have cards they really don't want to discard. Maybe in a dedicated discard warlock deck, but...that's not really a thing in standard, and this card seems a bit slow and clunky for wild (where discard warlock is not exactly close to tier 1 either). Random discard matters for discard warlock too--the good discard cards are ones that reliably discard hand of gul'dan.

Onyxian Drake: I was hyped for this card at first--shield slam stapled to good stats??? But I've cooled on it. Shield slam works cause it costs 1. You can play your 3 mana heavy plate and shield slam in the same turn--that's a 4 mana play. Doing that with Onyxian Drake is a...7 mana play? Oof, that's expensive. Still...might be fine--it has a dragon tag, and it looks like that will matter in the mini set. And even if dragon warrior is not a thing, N'zoth resurrecting this might be a thing.

Whelp Bonker: Seems like a bad version of acolyte of pain. Maybe there are decks in standard that want a bad version of acolyte of pain though? IDK.

Lightmaw Netherdrake: This condition sounds like a pain to put together. Nothing like dying to aggro with your board clear in your hand because you don't have the other things in your hand that activate the board clear. Maybe it's better than it looks?

Onyxian Warder: It has a dragon tag, so it activates all your other dragon nonsense. And...it's a bit like that card from galakrond shaman (corrupt elementalist). 5 mana, summon two 2/1s with rush; obviously that card also invoked galakrond, which is why it was so good, but it was still just a solid tempo play on turn 5, and this is technically slightly better tempo (3/6 instead of 3/3). The dragon tag makes me pretty confident this will go into dragon decks. Like...people ran fire elemental in elemental shaman. Tribal tag on a card that otherwise looks like an arena play is often just good enough. (This assumes dragon decks will be a thing, mind you, obviously if nobody runs dragon decks, RIP this card).

Deep Breath: It's...a 5 mana cleave spell. Most of the cleave spells I can think of that saw play costed 1 mana (shooting star, felscream blast). Blade dance used to cost 2 mana, and it was good at 2. This costs 5. I'm...skeptical.

Don't Stand in the Fire: For most of the decks that want it (combo decks, control decks) it's a worse volcano. But...maybe that's good enough for standard? Some chance of it getting run in a tempo deck that would never consider volcano, just to dunk on other tempo decks, but I think Snowfall Guardian already has Shaman sorted in the "dunk on other tempo decks" department.

Mini-set spoilers have started

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/7/1/AAAmNpAAC6ZP.jpg

It also increased the number of times bladestorm can repeat from 30 to 50.

Can now kill some large Yogg Sarons, Abominable Lieutennants, and Ivus the Forest Lord I guess?

Based on lore discussions I've seen, Kazakus' sister is probably Lady Prestor (a.k.a. Onyxia) who we're almost certainly going to fight in the mini set in her dragon form.

Also I will be extremely disappointed if there aren't several references to this audio track (video contains lots of swearing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUXdcrSbIho

Man, I have seen like...almost no discussion of standard at all after the nerfs. (The subreddit is all about Battlegrounds and Duels, which makes sense those modes got new content and it's busted, and wild players are excited cause we don't get nerfs very often).

Had the lunar new year quest to play 3 games in standard, and realized I didn't actually have a standard deck (last one I used to ladder at all was pirate warrior, and I've disenchanted the quest). So...I went with the deck that VS hyped the most, which was Drek'thar taunt druid, crafted one oracle of elune I was missing, re-crafted the two nerfed cards and...went 0-3 at bronze 10.

Well, kinda questioning that 800 dust I spent, but oh well.

---

Anyway, enough about standard; let's talk about wild.

So...on Odd Quest Hunter--part of the reason I was looking into this deck was cause I thought it might have a good matchup into mech'a'thun warlock and freeze shaman, and it does! Also, Ignite Mage is around and has been piloted at high legend by a few players, and also has a good matchup into mech'a'thun warlock and freeze shaman.

But...what I didn't think about is that there's just a better option that can fill the same role.

The one I've been messing with is...quest rogue (caverns below).

I'm actually at the point that I'm bouncing between evenlock and quest rogue on ladder. Evenlock is better against pirate warrior, and probably some hyper aggro decks. Quest rogue feels better against most other stuff I'm facing. Although...worth noting that quest rogue isn't hopeless into pirate warrior (probably have a 40% winrate or so). One of the few quest rewards that are actually better than pirate warrior's quest reward, AND quest rogue can typically finish the quest a turn earlier. Still a bad matchup cause they hit you in the face with pirates. But like...not unwinnably bad?

That said, Divine Spirit Priest might just be a better option--haven't played it yet, but it's got the best winrate against pirate warrior according to VS, and playing against it, I've seen that deck OTK from an empty board on like turn...5 or 6 or so? No idea how consistent that is, but man, just reading about that deck in the VS report I underestimated how good it would be against things other than pirate warrior. I assumed they would just get frozen and devolved by freeze shaman, and plague of flamed by control warriors, but they have a lot more access to charge than I considered (Gnomeregan Infantry, Wave of Apathy+Potion of Illusion).

Slight functional change to tradeable that makes it a bit worse with bleeds from garotte:

https://twitter.com/hsdecktech/status/1486770242969686016

The way tradeable used to work was put the tradeable on the bottom of your library, draw a card, then shuffle your library. This meant a tradeable alway drew all bleeds if you only had bleeds left.

The way tradeable works now is put the tradeable in a random part of the deck, draw a different card. Now if you have only bleeds left, one tradeable will draw a random amount (at least 1).

Wow, ok, off my tavern brawl pack I got Abominable Lieutennant (card I've been interested in for standard ramp druid but didn't feel like crafting) AND also Tamsin's Phylactery (a card I was thinking about crafting to try out wild mech'a'thun warlock, but wasn't ready to commit the dust).

So based on datamining it seems like monk might be coming (presumably in the first set of the next rotation in April)?

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/sczehm/seems_like_monk_is_actually_coming/

LOL already faced a mirror.

They were running...

Venomous Scorpid: I feel like this should be worse than Mystery Winner; it costs 3, mystery winner costs 1. Buuuuut I will say that I lost, and Venomous Scorpid being a beast and adding 2 damage to Kill Command was part of the reason I lost, soooo....maybe my opponent is a genius? IDK.

Had a trial game with odd quest hunter, to see how bad the nerf was.

I only really played the deck super early the first couple of days after the quest came out, so the old list I had had a whole lot of non-meta cards in it. Let me talk about a few of the random-ass cards I had in my deck.

Secret Plan: I think this is a reasonable card to include--non-zero chance to get quest progression off of it. And after the quest is done it's two hero power resets.

Mystery Winner: meh, it's okay. Against decks that don't give you minions to target with quest progressing cards like powershot and overwhelm, it's a minion to target. On early turns, it's better board tempo than Secret Plan.

Unleash the Hounds: I immediately cut this card for a tradeable cause I remembered how much it sucked when I was messing around with the deck when it was new.

So...overall with my jankier list, -2 Unleash the Hounds, -2 Rapid Fire, +4 tradeables. Worth noting I don't own Toxic Reinforcements, but I'm pretty sure I don't need them.

Completed the quest on something like turn 6, and managed to deal like 70 damage to an armour druid and kill them.

Yeah, pretty sure this deck can survive the balance changes. Obviously my list is not optimal (It's probably still worth running Toxic Reinforcements, and might be worth running the Imported Tarantula+Master's Call package--can't say I felt like crafting 4 epics just to test out a slightly more optimal list).

New patch out.

Gotta say, when I have like 20 copies of sorcerer's apprentice, the game doesn't need to warn me for every single copy I dust that I won't be able to play the card in Classic anymore.

Like...maybe just warn me when I'm down to dusting the last 2 copies?

Mmm...I've been trying out wild c'thun druid, and playing it badly.

I don't think I've gotten a single kill with c'thun. Partially due to misplays (burning cards, using too many copies of moonlit guidance). But also...games where I would get kills people just concede before I can do so.

Like...obviously I need to learn the deck better, but...also I'm reminded of an old video Toast used to do where he'd pretend to be some kind of combo druid and not actually put a win condition in his deck.

Also, apparently the person claiming to be banned over dust might have been banned for hearthstone at all, cause the screenshot they posted to the hearthstone subreddit was linking back to the WoW terms of service:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/sauo8e/did_the_guy_who_claimed_a_ban_lie/

skullbone posted...

Exploiting Blizzard's awful economy because of THEIR mistake should not be punished with an account ban. Just remove the stuff they got and move on!

Sure, I'd prefer if they had just removed the extra resources in some way rather than do a 15 day ban.

I just think some kind of punishment is reasonable for people who clearly thought the dust was a bug and deliberately tried to exploit the bug by using leaked information. I can agree that a 15 day ban is not the punishment I would have chosen, though, sure.

And two days before the nerf, we get the newest VS report for wild:

https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/wild-vs-data-reaper-report-30/

The interesting new information to me is that C'Thun Druid is probably not the best build of druid--Linecracker Mech'a'thun druid seems to be performing better.

Mech'a'thun Warlock is also apparently quietly a very good deck.

Divine Spirit Priest running Drek'thar to pull Neru'bar Weblords is apparently the best counter to pirate warrior in the entire format (o_O)

I'm very curious where the format goes after the nerfs. Obviously the three decks in tier 1 in this report are getting nerfed. The one thing I will note is that the report is wrong in saying that Ignite Mage has been slowed down by 2 turns (experts are saying it's half a turn slower on average). But also, if decks like ignite mage and odd quest warrior drop in popularity, the decks that target them with anti-spell tech will also drop.

UltimaterializerX posted...

f you dont look at content outside of the client (which is the vast majority), you would never understand whats going on here.

If you don't look outside the client, you also almost certainly don't get banned.

They're not banning people who crafted the last few meme legendaries they don't have (frankly, those people already removed the dust from their own accounts by crafting bad legendaries, lol). Like...pretty sure they didn't ban Zeddy, for example--he spent some of the dust he got without realizing it (and then complained that he was down to 0 dust, and then Blizzard had to remind him that he crafted some cards).

They ARE banning people who saw the leaked balance patch, and crafted 10 copies of raid the docks. You don't craft 10 copies of raid the docks unless you are looking for information outside the client, and see the leaked balance changes, and ALSO suspect that the dust you just received was a glitch and might be taken away (the only reason to craft 10 copies of soon to be nerfed cards is to convert them back into dust, but if you thought all the dust on your account was legit, you would just keep it as dust, no reason to do so much money laundering if you don't think it was a glitch).

Basically, the people who are getting banned obviously thought they received the dust in error, searched for information outside the client to find the leak of the upcoming nerfs, and tried to exploit the system to bypass the Blizzard rollback that they were already expecting.

Seems...fair to punish that group?

UltimaterializerX posted...

Like wtf does that deck do against aggro now?

Depends what aggro. Probably just beats most aggro TBH.

Like...if people try to bring secret mage back, I'm pretty sure quest odd still dumpsters secret mage. Secret mage runs a lot of 4/3s and 3/2s and 2/3s. A 0 mana hero power that can deal 3 damage to a minion (stage 2 reward; not even the finished quest) kinda crushes that deck. Like...when I was experimenting with an un-refined list right after united in stormwind came out, I think I had somewhere in the range of 70%-100% winrate against secret mage? Just clear their board and they lose. Secret mage can even slow down quest completion with counterspell, but that doesn't matter cause they have no board and you'll finish the quest eventually.

Looking at the matchup chart on the old VS report, Odd Quest Hunter has...62% winrate against aggro druid, 64% winrate against secret mage, 61% winrate against murloc shaman, etc. And a 53% winrate against quest warrior (maybe quest warrior gets a small edge there after the nerfs since it's already close and QWar is getting the smaller nerf?)

Not that it can never be beaten by aggro--odd paladin is supposed to have an advantaged matchup into Odd Quest Hunter--probably because a 3 damage hero power isn't that great at killing multiple 1/1s. Shadow Priest...has a disadvantaged matchup against quest hunter right now, but barely (46% winrate) but I could see that flipping around with the nerfs--Shadow Priest has a lot of burn from hand so they are pretty resilient to having their board cleared, so maybe that becomes a slightly advantaged matchup.

But quite a few aggro decks have a lot of 3 health minions and need a board and the first two subquest rewards giving a 3 damage hero power that costs 0 and can hit minions just lines up really nice into those decks.

And there's a collection of other decks that odd hunter would just naturally do well against; decks that rely on their opponent not running flare to clear ice block probably still struggle against quest hunter, as well as controlly Priest decks like Reno Priest and Big Priest, if those make a come back.

Like...if there's a lot of those decks and non-paladin aggro decks in the meta, I'm pretty sure odd quest hunter continues to be fine.

The decks that could really shut out odd quest hunter are like...heavy armourgain druid decks (the worst matchup for odd quest hunter is and has always been quest druid). Another thing that could mess with Odd Quest Hunter is combo decks that don't rely on ice block and haven't been slowed down (stuff like Pillager Rogue jumps to mind). And...theoretically Odd Paladin could be a thorn for odd quest hunter, but odd paladin has a 23% winrate into quest warrior, so if quest warrior remains popular at all, nobody's going to play Odd Paladin to counter Odd Quest Hunter.

Just...as big as the nerf is, I don't really think that decks that rely on having a board are suddenly going to become a general counter to Odd Quest Hunter. Quest Hunter only needs to play 2 spells for their hero power to become a 2 mana darkbomb, and 4 spells for their hero power to become a 0 mana darkbomb. And the rest of odd quest hunter's deck is filled with removal. Building a board (with some exceptions) tends not to work that well against them.

Decks that beat it are still going to be mostly either uninteractive decks--burn decks and combo decks that don't need to keep a board, where the only thing Odd Quest Hunter can do is try to kill them first--against that kind of deck, slowing down the final quest reward will obviously cause quest hunter to lose more games. The other kind of deck that will continue to beat them is hardcore armourgain decks (where yeah, slower quest completion will also matter cause it's a race against armourgain).

But I don't think board based aggro in general will become a sticking point for the deck. The deck packs a ton of removal and has the better long game.

So...I saw someone post a wild odd ping mage list on reddit.

It looked like complete unplayable garbage, way too greedy to be good (five 7-mana cards, and Brann Bronzebeard in case you get to 10 mana and can summon two ragnaroses with Jan'alai the dragonhawk). But I've been messing around with it and getting more wins than I expected.

I don't think the deck is good, I just think ice block is OP. (Incidentally, I have never won with the deck in matchups where they have anti ice block tech, such as quest hunter running flare or mech'a'thun warlock).

I'm also highly amused that Dawngrasp is one of like...three new hero cards considered playable in wild, almost exclusively because they're a 7 mana Ice Block.

LiquidOshawott posted...

Honestly I wonder if wild bans Drekthar at some point

Can't see why they would.

They just made Drek'thar unable to pull Sorcerer's Apprentice, and there's really not a whole lot else left with Drek'thar that is really all that concerning.

None of quest hunter, nor quest warrior, nor quest mage run Drek'thar.

C'thun Druid has better things to do than Drek'thar (they're busy with Oaken Summons).

Warlock decks with giants and battlegrounds battlemaster aren't running Drek'thar cause they have high cost minions

Warlock decks with Mech'a'thun aren't running Drek'thar cause they have high cost minions

Shadow Priest isn't running Drek'thar. (They actually want to, but Darkbishop Benedictus disables Drek'thar).

I would expect Drek'thar in Paladin (as a third call to arms) but most paladin lists right now seem to be opting to run Loatheb and Battlegrounds Battlemaster instead. (Not to mention, popular paladin lists right now include Reno paladin, which is going to run Reno at 6, and handbuff paladin, who wants Blademaster Samuro and Glowstone Technician and often Chillblade Champion).

Like...I'm trying to think what deck is even going to run Drek'thar after the nerf? Oh wait: frog shaman. Yeah, playing drek'thar to tutor spirit of the frog will probably still be a thing. But that doesn't sound ban-worthy.

UltimaterializerX posted...

I know. That deck would be lucky to be tier 3. Here was the previous Wild meta before the new quests happened.

https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/wild-vs-data-reaper-report-28/

How is a pre-quest meta report going to tell you how good quest decks will be?

Like...this is a meta report after the quests happened:

https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/wild-vs-data-reaper-report-29/

Wild basically became a 3 deck format, quest hunter, quest warrior, and even warlock. (Those three were tier 1. Aggro Shadow Priest was tier 2. Everything else was deep into tier 3).

This report is a little out of date, since VS hasn't done a wild report since Alterac Valley launched. Alterac Valley made Freeze Shaman into a deck. But it's safe to say that quest hunter is still very much shaping the format, since it also dumpsters Freeze Shaman, and tends to run flare which makes it a natural predator to any mage combo decks that lean on ice block.

Obviously quest hunter is losing rapid fire, but I really don't see how looking at a pre-quest meta is going to tell you very much about quest hunter without rapid fire. They still have the quest, there's no deck you can look at from a pre-quest meta that's going to have the same kind of matchup spread.

Eh, the moment I saw dust added (with no context or announcement or explanation in the popup), I was immediately suspicious and didn't spend it. Not remotely surprised to see that there was a mistake.

Speaking of the balance changes, the official patch notes are out:

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/23765270/22-2-patch-notes

And there's some interesting tidbits in there, like apparently the warrior quest is only being nerfed from 7 pirates to 8 pirates, and the nerf is targeting standard, not wild (since the deck does have an unusually high winrate at low MMR in standard).

7->8 will be a pretty soft nerf for wild, probably doesn't require any deckbuilding changes--you aren't going to run out of pirates or be forced to play Smite to finish the quest, but it's still probably enough to make playing the quest reward on turn 5 very rare, so that's something.

Also, there's mechanical changes, where they're trying to increase consistency of buff layers:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/patch-220-card-effect-priority-update/76118

Some interesting notes here include that in the process of making things more consistent--Moonfang now always takes 1 damage, even if there's a Mo'arg artificer in play. Also the paladin quest will work more like stormwind champion, and provide a passive +2/+2 on top of the current stats (so using equality will set the silver hand recruits to 3 health, not 1 health, for example).

I think Mr Smite is okayish--he costs 6, Leeroy cost 5, this is a substantial mana increase. I dunno how I feel about the Juggernaut randomly spawning Smite, but the warrior quest is about to get deleted from standard thanks to nefs for wild, so I guess that's not going to matter pretty soon. I am unclear on why the new edwin is a pirate, knowing the interaction with smite would be there. Like...rogue already has good pirate synergy for smite; stuff like giving Prize Plunderers and Swashburglars charge. Was that not enough?

Wild balance changes have me excited, so I'm going to talk about them

The raid the docks nerf raises the number of pirates of one (all?) of the steps to 3 pirates. So...8 or 9 pirates total that need to be played, instead of 7. I'm assuming 9.

Expected to delete the deck from standard--you will run out of pirates in hand before completing the quest. Wild is a different story, since you get Ancharr in wild to draw 2 more pirates, but you will consistently need to play Ancharr now to complete your quest (no completing the quest on turn 5), and might need to do things like play Mr Smite for quest completion (or alternatively, cut mr smite so you never need to play him for quest completion).

I don't think the deck goes away, and would be surprised if it stops being tier 1. Just...still such a problem for all the old timey wild aggro decks like secret mage and odd paladin--they can't beat the quest reward. Raza priest has also historically struggled to beat the quest reward--one turn delay helps, but it's probably not enough to turn the matchup around. So like...if any of those decks resurface, quest warrior is still going to have massive favourables against those decks.

Rapid shot nerf is big for odd quest hunter, because it was basically like drawing 2 cards. You would put 1 mana deal 1 damage into that deck, so yeah. Costing 2 now means it's deleted from the odd version of the deck. Some people are hyping the non-odd version of the deck, but I've played a Reno quest hunter in wild, and in my experience is that the non-odd version sucks, so I'm not too worried about that. (Like...it has moments--Dragonbane is a hell of a card when you have 0 mana repeatable hero power, but...overall I lose a lot with that deck, in casual so lol, yeah, not worried). Which...basically just leaves odd quest hunter down their best card, with no actual replacement. (They would literally play 1 mana deal 1 damage if it existed, but they're already playing all the 1 mana and all the 3 mana damage cards. Fucking powershot is being played in wild, LOL).

That said, Odd Quest Hunter...might still be just fine. You can run the version that runs all the tradable beasts including Imported Tarantula, and then runs Master's Call to draw three tradeable cards (and sometimes baku, who is a beast). It's a slower version of deck, more focus on card draw, and can't run Auctionmaster Beardo so no surprise kills, but it will still have the same inevitability, and also still be a great anti-secret deck thanks to Flare being good in the deck as a 1 mana draw 1 spell.

Apprentice--so...there's someone on reddit who likes running computer simulations for ignite mage, and according to them, the average turn to kill of ignite mage has only been slowed down only by half a turn:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/s7m3it/leaked_balance_changes_for_222/htb5ed2/

Accounting for ice block (incl. Magister): wins on effective turn 5.71 at 2 mana and turn 6.2 at 4 mana.

Most of the other wild combo mages are largely deleted, of course--nobody is going to be using Drek'thar to pull out sorc apprentices and flamewakers anymore. (Although one other noteworthy mage combo deck that slipped away is quest mage using parrots to get lots of extra turns--keep an eye on that one).

The one thing I will say is that anti-secret tech like flare should be a pretty reliable way for aggro decks to counter ignite mage now.

(The other four balance changes are all for cards that are pretty irrelevant in wild).

So...honestly, despite how big these nerfs look, I don't think any of these decks has actually been deleted in wild. But...still these are not small nerfs, so maybe it's enough to bump these decks down to tier 2 or low tier 1.

UltimaterializerX posted...

We have the biggest balance problem since day one DH and they arent doing anything until the 25th.

My pet theory about that is that they are planning to do a more complicated change than "increase mana cost by 1"--stuff like changing how gnoll and maestra work together.

Changes like that take more time than just increasing a mana cost by 1.

(Honestly, though, I don't seem to mind this standard meta--like...yeah, lots of people are playing rogue, but games have been generally pretty fun. And I'm hyped that they're making balance changes targeted at wild).

LiquidOshawott posted...

So the top deck right now is just a Poison/Thief Rogue fusion where you replace the Strikes and Vipers with Wildpaw Gnolls and Maestra

Scabbs to 8 and Gnolls to 3/4 and 6 please

I honestly predicted other rogues would pick up the Gnoll/Maestra package with zero other thief cards before it happened--Maestra just provides like 80% of all discounts to gnoll, which is stupid, and discourages actually running a high number of thief cards in thief rogue.

Like...think about Gnoll, think about if Maestra didn't exist. Is there ever a world where Gnoll is broken if you need to discount it by playing....five swashburglars? Absolutely not right?.

IMO Just remove the interaction between Wildpaw Gnoll and Maestra.

Change the text to "non-rogue class cards you've added to your hand".

If removing the Maestra interaction is too much of a nerf, you could even buff Gnoll to 4 mana so it's a 4 mana 4/5 rush before any discounts. (Still a card only actual thief rogues will care about).

---

TBH, though, gnoll is still genuninely a hearthstone card that is interactive, and encourages both players to play for the board. I don't even think I'd be mad if they didn't nerf gnoll and just nerfed all the uninteractive shit instead. (Vicious Syndicate's suggestions of Incanter's Flow to 4 mana and Cloak of Shadows to 4 mana sounds fine to me. Edwin doesn't need to be a pirate who gains charge from Smite. I would also honestly not complain if they wanted to slightly lower weapon rogue's burn from hand with no weapon. Right now it's 36, which is manageable for armour classes like ramp Druid and control Warrior, but it would be cool if it was like...28 so that maybe a priest who is at 30 health behind a taunt wall can actually beat a weapon rogue. So like...put Garotte down to one bleed or make guild trader only give spell damage +1 would be possible ways to pull that off).

Camden posted...

but does anyone actually do the 100% winrate shtick outside of it being a joke/meme?

People did it serious around like 2017/2018 era. Maybe it's not a thing anymore.