Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic: Death Is Eternal, My Turn Is Not!

(+) Yeah! (+)

Earthen Scales
Emerald Reaver
Jade Idol
Mark of the Lotus
Voodoo Doctor

Druid of the Swarm
Murloc Tidehunter
Power of the Wild
Rockpool Hunter
Fortollan FOrage
Wild Growth

Deathspeaker (x2)
Feral Rage
Jade Blossom
SHallow Gravedigger
Squirming Tentacle
Stonehill Defender (x2)

Aberrant Berserker
Faceless Shambler
Fire Plume Phoenix
Keeper of the Grove
Kooky Chemist
Midnight Drake
Spellbreaker

Nourish (x2)
SPreading Plague

Gadgetzan Auctioneer



I just drafted that arena deck. I feel like it has the potential to be absolutely ridiculous in arena if I'm ever able to have an auctioneer turn. And with 2 nourish I should be reasonable capable of seeing plenty of my deck each game.

Not to mention double stonehill to dig for jade behemoths.

hoping for for good draws and 9+ wins, but I suppose time will tell.
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some of those cards (like jade idol, blossom, wild growth) are individually bad. but the fact that you went all in on them and were lucky enough to draft the constructed druid package with nourish, auctioneers, and everything is pretty extraordinary. this might be a case where they will carry you to high wins. yeah, I could see it.

most importantly you have spreading plague. this will easily allow you to stall out games in the matches when you draw it. that's probably going to be a sleeper MVP of this deck. really, really good card in arena because of its absolutely disgusting design (to punish the other player for doing well)
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Arena #23
I was Offered: Hunter/Priest/Shaman
I Picked: Priest


This will be my first Priest draft of the expansion. Let's see what Priest arena is like now...

The Draft: Was offered really, really bad synergy picks. In fact like my first 5 picks were all terrible. Amazing. I did draft mostly stall/control cards at the low mana slot but.... here's the problem... I barely got ANY heavy value-oriented cards to build up to. This means I'm just one of those annoying priest decks that can make games last forever but has no win condition. This is really, really, really bad. I could easily see this deck going 0-3. I can't even conceptualize how it would win any matches. Checking the tier score confirms my suspicions and it is among the lowest quality decks I've drafted. Sooo yeah. Against aggro I'll just get rushed down and killed, against control they will always out value me. The only people I can beat are unlucky ones who somehow drafted even worse than me.

Well let's get this over with.

Game 1: Vs Mage. I went First. Lol. I got into the mindset that my normal hunter/rogue tactics would not work here and just held onto my cards instead of playing them. This ends up working out... fairly well. I'm able to make a few good plays early on and come out ahead. I think I made a HUGE value play every single turn from 3 to 5. Pretty good stuff overall. I made some really strong plays but in the end I'm playing against Mage and I have low quality deck. It's quite literally impossible for me to win. I made it close but he topdecks Saronite Chain Gang. Then Ancient of Blossoms. Then Frozen Clone for ultimate value. Obviously I can't play around it because we're in topdeck mode and if I just play nothing I lose the game anyway. But, I mean, I lose the game ANYWAY. So I guess it doesn't matter? Then Blizzard so even my minions on board are useless. Having no lines of play that are valid is pretty epic, huh. Loss.

God damn this guy's deck wasn't even that good. He just got lucky that he walked into some poor sap who drafted Priest as his 0-0 game.

Game 2: Vs Shaman. I went Second. I guess we'll see now if at least 0-1 decks are actually 0-1 now. Had to gamble on some Volatile Elemental RNG early on and got the worst outcome. Then he played 4 mana 7/7. I actually have no cards I can even play in this circumstance. This is legitimately hilarious how bad this deck is. How the fuck does blizzard allow this to happen? Someone out there is walking to 12 wins right now with a deck that is probably almost 200% better than this one in terms of card quality. Can whoever came up with the idea of the synergy pool please get fired? He gets good Devole RNG to transform my minions exactly into understated minions that are slightly too weak to kill off his 4 mana 7/7. I topdeck exactly Spirit Lash, the only card in my deck that could help me in this circumstance. He has Saronite Chain Gang for the save. This seems familiar! I have no choice at this point but to go all in on Keening Banshee. Probably not the best play when I'm likely to go into fatigue this game. Well, to be clear, it is the best play I can make right now, but it's also a fucking terrible play. This is just how unbelievably bad this deck is. Then, unbelievably, I get Gadgetzan Auctioneer to stick and go completely nuts with him. Within about 2 turns I am dominating the board. Gadget is still up. And I shred his health from 30 all the way down to lethal. Wow. I guess I do have a win condition. Win.

Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Keening Banshee is not a very good combination, by the way. But hey, Gadget and a bunch of cheap spells is pretty good. And Banshee + A bunch of bad cards is pretty okay too, since I'm mostly burning worthless cards anyway!
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Game 3: Vs Paladin. I go First. I decide to keep a 5 drop in my opening hand because it has silence and, well, it's unlikely I'll have a good early game play anyway. Got wrecked by some bad adapt RNG on my Thunder Lizard. Although he had Aldor Peacekeeper for it so it didn't matter anyway. I'm stuck making lots of unfavorable midgame trades. And keep in mind this card has like, three heavy cards that are actually good. So it's not like I'll actually do well in the attrition game. He has Sunkeeper Tarim on turn 8. Ah, so this is what happens when this deck goes against one with quality cards. In the end I had two outs in my deck and didn't draw either of them. Loss.

Game 4: Vs Warrior. I went Second. Ah, it's the class whose Hero Power is literally Priest but better! He plays solid removal spells on turns 2, and 3. And 4. And a weapon on 5. Kind of a huge deal. Drawing into perfect answers at the very start of the game can basically set the outcome in stone. It's rare to happen and always high impact. As a result I'm very far behind before we even reach the midgame. More removal on turn 6. Holy shit is this guys fucking deck entirely removal cards? WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. Finally on turn 7 he makes a sub optimal play and I'm able to punish him for the first time without sheer card quality and draw RNG deciding the outcome. Avenging Wrath from Grimestreet Informant. He gets good enough RNG to clear my board and wreck me. Oh am I tired of this card already. I'm able to play enough mid sized minions and get them to stick that I eventually wear him down. Win.

Game 5: Vs Shaman. I went Second. Unfortunately for me this guy is playing an Aggro deck. He gets going pretty fast too. Fortunately for me I do draw my two board clears early on. Now it's just a matter of being as greedy as possible and playing them at the best time without waiting too long and getting myself killed. He fills the entire board with 2 health minions on turn 5 and I wipe all of them with Holy Nova. I think I did pretty well. Priest of the Feast takes me from 19 back up to 30 in short order. Spirit Lash value for another board clear, then I've got PotF hidden behind Bog Creeper. Yeahhhh. Things are looking good for me finally. Win.

Well this deck has officially won 3 more games than I thought it could. I'll be honest though, it's been a slog. Even the games I've won are pretty miserable and unfun. That last game was the only exception. That one felt like I actually made meaningful decisions that impacted the game.

Game 6: Vs Rogue. I went Second. Now this guy is far more likely to tempo out quickly and efficiently than some random Shaman. I got Keening Banshee down early and forced him to commit resources to destroying it. Aw yeah. I play pretty well up to a certain point but he has Vilespine Slayer to kill my one big taunt and well, that's all folks. Loss.

Final Result: 3-3

1 pack, 30 gold, 15 dust
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So is Ranked messed up for anyone else?

Hadn't logged on for a few days so today was first day I logged in to get ranking rewards. Get ranking rewards. Get bonus stars. Go to play Ranked. Rank 25.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see. I was in Wild which is strange as hell because I have never played Wild so there's zero reason it would be toggled to Wild.

Did you use a wild deck against the Lich King?
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So I think I've come to the conclusion that all of the Death Knights are good.

Malfurion and Anduin are the two stand outs and stand above the rest but they all can be built around particular archetypes.

Even the weakest one (Garrosh I think) you can build a nice cool deck around and if Druid gets hit hard he'll be a big winner
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I've recently been thinking about the cost of some of the DK's and wondering if they shouldn't be changed. Anduin seems properly costed. Malfurion I feel should go up one. Uther seems to not be all that great and could go down one or two.
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That is very possible that I threw some sort of wild card into a deck when doing some of those. I'm not up to Lich King yet but yeah very possible

Also jesus christ, someone just handed me an Arena game by dropping a 9 Mana Zombeast (Kodo + Stegasaur) straight into Mirror Entity. Had plenty of stuff in his hand and wasn't under enough pressure to force him to drop it right then.

I think Uther is ok? Just that control Paladin as an archetype is very shaky to climb with between Highlander Priests and Jade Druids

I mean if you are just facing straight Aggro go for it but those two are problems
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Just played against an absolutely disgusting Druid deck in Arena. Not even at high win total either (was at 4-2)

Turn 9 - Spreading Plague + Strongshell Scavenger
Turn 10 - Ultimate Infestation (with 1 card in hand)
Turn 11 - Tortollan Forager + Bonemare
Turn 12 - Spreading Plague + Cryptlord
Turn 13 - Starfall + Strongshell Scavenger and I just conceded at this point

Like what the fuck. How do you draft that

Just got my rank 13 Goldens. Abyssal Enforcer and Twilight Drake.

Damn, that was good.
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synergy

pool
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Found this over on the Hearthstone forums.


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We understand that Druid has been overly dominant in Hearthstone's constructed play. In order to balance things out, all other classes besides Druid are banned from Constructed.
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yeah I saw that yesterday Wedge. hilarious.

someone pointed out that the only card on the list with a sub 50 winrate is the card that can be played by classes other than Druid. amazing.
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Played a crypt lord against priest.
Damaged it so it's health was at 4.
Swapped it's attack and health.
Played all of the minions.


Viola. 4 attack minion with infinity health that priest has no way to deal with.
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VeryInsane posted...

Did you use a wild deck against the Lich King?

Why wouldn't you? Kelthuzad plus Sylvanas is auto win.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Played a crypt lord against priest.
Damaged it so it's health was at 4.
Swapped it's attack and health.
Played all of the minions.


Viola. 4 attack minion with infinity health that priest has no way to deal with.

Pint sized potion plus that cabal shadow priest mind control lady. I run that combo in my list to steal 4 power minions from smart players.

6-2 so far with my "jade" druid in arena.

First loss was against a 1 win mage who had all of the things. Perfect answers to everything.

Second loss was to a warlock at 6 wins who highrolled me with a Bane of Doom and it completely swung the game.


Still hoping to win a few more but I'm on the ropes now.
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Finished 8-3. A little disappointing, but I could never quite string everything together.

So I drafted druid again and got this monstrosity:


Arcane Anomaly
Elven Archer
Jade Idol

Bloodfen Raptor
Crazed Alchemist
Gadgetzan Socialite
Mark of Y'Shaarj(X2)

Devilsaur Egg
Jade Blossom
Shallow Gravedigger
Squirming Tentacle
Stonehill Defender (x2)

Defender of Argus
Polluted Hoarder
Strongshell Scavenger
Tol'vir Stoneshaper

Corpse Raiser
Grook Fu Master
Nourish
SPreading Plague

Aya Blackpaw
Menagerie Warden (x2)

Ironbark Protector

Ultimate Infestation (x2)
Ultrasaur
Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound



2 Legendaries.
2 Ultimate Infestations.
Moderate beast synergy. (3 ways to either re summon or make copies of an Ultrasaur)
A couple Jade cards, not that it matters since there isn't enough to win via tempo jade and I can't see myself losing if the game approaches fatigue anyways.

And a Spreading Plague + Strongshell Scavenger combo to throw out if I'm getting wrecked early.


The curve seems too high so I might just get dumpster'd, but I think with decent luck I'll go 7+ again.
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Fuck Vicious Fledgling in Arena.

I know we've said this 100 times, but god damn.
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Arena #24
I was Offered: Mage/Shaman/Warlock
I Picked: Warlock


Fuuuccckkkk. I really just want to play Rogue but for some reason they won't offer it to me. Reminds me of when I wanted to play Paladin recently and had quests for it and they didn't offer Paladin to me for like 5 or 6 runs. Argh.

The Draft: Servant of Kalimos for the billionth time. Overall ended up with an 'okay' midrange deck, but it lacks any of the super broken/good cards from the current set which is a recipe for disappointment. I won't set my expectations too high, even if midrange decks seem to do pretty well (luck willing).

Game 1: Vs Paladin. I went First. Bad opening hand. Like, outright bad. Managed to play a solid game until it came down to topdeck time, and I pulled the worst possible card in my deck. A 1 drop. Specifically, a Flame Imp. When my health was already low and I just needed ANY good minion to help fight for the board without dying. Loss.

Game 2: Vs Warlock. I went First. I tapped until turn 4, then played Keening Banshee. Amazing. 9/4 Midnight Drake on the following turn. Unfortunately baiting his removal did not really work since he had additional removal waiting. Oh well. And more removal the following turn. I seriously want to know how people pull this off. Drafting and drawing perfect answers completely on curve in arena. Cause I gotta say in the last 100+ games this has barely ever happened on my end, but it seems to happen TO me quite a lot. I'm able to have a good swing turn on 8 at least. My earlier tapping really pays off and I have many different lines of play available to me. This, unfortunately, gets counted by.... additional removal. A two card combo even. So just to be clear he has played 5 removal cards in 8 turns. In arena. More removal on turn 10. The only thing more insane than his constant removal is the fact that I've reloaded the board like three times now. Then the multiple giant taunts and heals start coming down to help him buy additional extra turns to draw into more answers. Then Bonemare. Thankfully the bullshit is finally over. I reload the board for the fifth time and finally he concedes as I have lethal. Win.

Game 3: Vs Paladin. I went First. Manage to draw a lot of my good, early cards this time too. So I can actually capitalize on going first. And this is basically exactly what I do. This is a game that was probably VERY frustrating from my opponents side of the board since I just completely shut down every play he made, and this was driven entirely by the fact that I happened to go first and therefore had the initiative to do so. Win.

Game 4: Vs Mage. I went Second. Got a SOLID opening hand. So good that I didn't even mulligan anything. He plays Prince Keleseth. On Turn 2. Oh... and he actually has two drops in his deck so it's just nothing. LOL. Vanilla 2/2 for the win. Fun little note. Keening Banshee will still burn cards even if you kill it by playing Abyssal Enforcer. A weird game. He played very aggressive and tried to face race me, but also made really greedy decisions like trying to keep his poison minions on the board for multiple turns instead of taking favorable trades. This led to him being heavily punished multiple times and me pulling ahead. Firelands Portal and RNG saved him for a while, but it was too much and his bad play caught up with him. He Pyroblasts himself in the face. At least he knows shame for picking Mage. Win.
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Game 5: Vs Mage. I went First. Neither of us have a STRONG early game but mine seems slightly favored. Like I kept playing cards each turn that were just slightly too difficult for him to handle without extending extra resources. Once again a situation where me going first gave me the needed edge since he was always reacting to these plays. I played around his secrets effectively and kept up tempo in the midgame. However, there was still no clear winner and I could tell it would come down to a topdeck war, and deck quality. FLAMESTRIKE CREATED BY SHIMMERING TEMPEST. I am so beyond salty right now. Wow. Stalls the game out with Ice Walker. Plays Frost Lich Jaina the following turn. I actually still clinched the game in the end but I'm suffering from salt overload regardless. Anything less than perfect draw RNG, perfect plays, perfect cobalt scalebane RNG would have cost me that game. All because he played ONE card that is so powerful it can decide games. Unacceptable. Win.

Game 6: Vs Paladin. I went First. Strong opener, similar to my game 4 opener. Possibly even better, depending on what type of answers he has available. Unfortunately for me what he has is overstatted minions played on curve, making my good opener pretty obsolete as we just trade evenly and end up with an open board. And him leading in tempo somehow. And I whiff super hard on turn 4, pretty much costing me the game. Fun fact, Venomancer + Shadowflame does NOT kill everything with the poison effect. It only deals the normal 2 damage. Loss.

Game 7: Vs Druid. I went First. God awful opening hand. Thankfully I draw a Stonehill Defender to play on turn 3, which still isn't great, but it's better than not having a play until turn 6. He has the 2 mana 1/5 taunt which is still probably one of the most under-the-radar bullshit minions in the current card pool. I mean let's ignore the fact that it's essentially a 2 mana 3/3, but it's also defensively stated as a high health taunt with more health than anything can POSSIBLY kill on turn 2, and most things can deal with on turn 3. How? Just how does this shit get past QC? It seems like it was obvious and intentional that Druid would be beyond broken this expansion. Anyway, that's enough ranting. I get crushed by superior deck quality, not too surprising considering how many quality cards Druid has right now. Loss.

Final Result: 4-3

One fair loss, one loss due to really bad draw RNG at the most unfortunate time, one completely bullshit loss. This is better than the 40% rule I mentioned above so I have to admit this was a pretty good run overall. I did get a bit unlucky but the deck did about as well as expected. Edit: Though, to be fair, if you count the Mage game as one of the unfun games then it fits the 40% prediction almost perfectly, with 3/7 bad games.

1 Pack, 80 Gold.
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Mage arena

http://thelightforge.com/TierList

I want you to look at the mage section. Had a deck with 0 cards in the great section and 4 in the "good". I have not drafted bonemare all season too (has never been offered to me).
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Ugh, get into a top deck war against a Paladin in Arena. He's at 10 health, I'm at 30 health + 9 armor.

He gets Lich King off Stonehill Defender and I draw the only 2 low mana cards I have left in my deck next 2 turns.

Guess karma for me winning my last 2 games off Lich King (which I have in my deck, not off generation)

Played more ladder. Hit Rank 10 with little difficulty. Actually for so early in the season I'm surprised how many bad players are here.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Forceful_Dragon posted...
Second loss was to a warlock at 6 wins who highrolled me with a Bane of Doom and it completely swung the game.

Skill based game. Play better.

Im never happy to lose of course, but yes arena is still skill based. I maintain a decently high win average and can play arena nigh infinitely if i wanted.

I might randomly lose some games i feel like i deserve to win, but on the whole I know that by playing well I put myself in optimal positions. Sometimes this means i win games that i deserve to lose by playing to my outs. Other times it means playing around the cards that they are most likely to have and not playing around other cards and just hoping they don't have them.

There are players with 55% win rates and there are players with 60%+ win rates.

Over the course of hundreds of games the difference between them is determined by skill, not luck.
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I spent so long enduring the struggle of playing midrange and control hunter on ladder that it came full circle and I'm now very much enjoying my 8-2 start with face hunter, lol.
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Who wants an 80g quest I want to do it now.

Shaduln#1198 if you aren't on my list already.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Shaduln posted...

Who wants an 80g quest I want to do it now.

Shaduln#1198 if you aren't on my list already.

Added.

azurac took care of me, but I'll keep you in mind for my next one.
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I am irritated when I get punished for playing well.

I clear his board with a Kalimos invocation (in arena, no less), and then my Kalimos gets stolen by a 3 cost mind control tech.
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It's a skill based game with elements of luck.
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Ulti it just sounds like you want your opponent to have nothing but vanilla minions and spells that don't do anything.

Your opponent is a person, just like you. They have just as much incentive to make plays that will help them win as you do.

They put cards in their deck that have the potential to do good things. They did this on purpose in an attempt to win games.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

There are players with 55% win rates and there are players with 60%+ win rates.

this caused me to get curious and check mine. apparently it's 62.5%! this is better than I thought it would be.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Draw luck is an accepted part of any card game, and both players deal with that equally. Hearthstone's DNA is such that luck and randomness play WAY too big a factor in who wins.

jade druid doesn't have any random elements, you could play that. there's also a demon warlock deck that is playable and doesn't have any random elements.
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Ulti just likes opening packs and not playing the card games themselves

There is skill in constructed, you can tell who is a good pilot of their deck just by the fundamentals that they choose to make, like drawing first or using the most of their mana crystals
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If there was no skill, guys like Kolento and Pavel wouldn't do well as consistently as they do.
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made it from rank 18 to rank 10 last night running aggro hunter. was at 75% win rate up until rank 10, and ended the night around 65%. max win streak was 9.

35% of opponents were druid.

winning record against every class except warlock (1-2) and shaman (1-2).

and most interesting of all, I was actually having fun! imagine that. Oh, also, the deck didn't contain a single card from KFT.
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I was definitely losing to jade more often than I was losing to aggro. Playing unleash the hounds after someone follows up a hydra with living mana is quite delightful, btw.

I also wasn't exactly facing the best players at those ranks. But I did beat some jade druids if they just didn't draw innervate + spreading plague. Or occasionally even if they did, but not much.
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Also, I can't find the words to express the joy I felt after beating pirate warrior repeatedly.
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