Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic: You're Shivering, Are You Afraid?

(+) Yeah! (+)

dowolf posted...

bng_mmmk posted...

dowolf posted...

tbh if I'm nerfing Obsidian Statue, I'm dropping it to 3/8.

That route doesn't really speak to me, but it would need to be 2 attack imo if that's what you're doing.

It's laughable at 2 attack; you'd just swarm over it.

I mean, if you want to kill the card, go nuts. But a nine-mana anti-aggro tool should probably put the aggro player on his back foot.

You're still healing every time it gets hit and killing a minion when it dies.

I haven't played any aggro decks though so I don't have enough context.
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Putricide was the only one of the three bosses today that was challenging at all, and that was only because I went full on secrets before I realized he switched things up.
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Also, notice how you referred to it as an "anit-aggro card"

I agree that it seems to be designed that way.

But, ironically, due to the tools available in priest, it's actually quite effective as anti-control card against decks that use minions for utility. (black knight/skulking geist/primordial drake/curator/etc.)
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Thrall's not overrated, it's just that people thought it would be some ultimate grind tool when it's not. It's just another Evolve effect to help you stay in the game after they wipe your board. Just like Evolve itself, you don't really want to get to the point where you have to play it, but when you do it'll help you win.

For the opposite example, Shadowreaper Anduin having such a high win% when played doesn't mean it's insane, but just getting to the point where you can play it means you're already doing well.
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Yeah the win percentage for played feels a little misleading because how many of those games were going to be wins regardless of the hero card? It's an interesting article but maybe not an accurate representation of the impact of hero cards in a match.
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I mean...

Curator's main purpose is to draw cards and soak up damage. It still happily does that. Black Knight is a six-mana card; if it's 1-for-1'ing a 9-mana card, that's good for you. Skulking Geist is a bad card. Primordial Drake is essentially another 1-for-1 too; that's generally not a card you use to protect the rest of your board.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Geist isn't bad, Druid just went balling out of control. Geist hitting Evolve is nutso.

You would be correct to say that, if Shaman were a strong class, Skulking Geist would be a strong card.

But it's not.
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I thought Shaman was in a decent spot

It's certainly no Hunter at least.
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dowolf posted...

I mean...

Curator's main purpose is to draw cards and soak up damage. It still happily does that.
Black Knight is a six-mana card; if it's 1-for-1'ing a 9-mana card, that's good for you.
Skulking Geist is a bad card. Primordial Drake is essentially another 1-for-1 too;
that's generally not a card you use to protect the rest of your board.

It's not about OS killing Black Knight. It's about OS killing the gigantic minion I was about to smash my opponent's face with whenever I use Black Knight to clear the taunt.

See, therein lies the point. The root of the issue is that in my mind, if a card is supposed to be anti-aggro, it shouldn't also 1-for-1 the largest minion conceivable.

But even more central to the issue, I think, again, isn't the card itself, but the priest's ability to summon it over and over and over before turn 9 even comes around.



Like I said a while ago, I'm sure even if we had this conversation for another week, in the end you guys would just be saying "stop trying to play control hunter" and that's fine. Still going to speak my mind, though.
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And it's not even about whether Skulking Geist is good, either. I was just listing examples of utility minions. The point was that it shouldn't be insta-gibbing minions with bodies of that size.

bng_mmmk posted...

Or even just "destroy a random enemy minion with less attack than this minion"

This would make it still a very strong anti-aggro card without nerfing it so badly it wouldn't see play.

And if you think that would prevent it from seeing play, then maybe the card is good in too many scenarios.

edit: I could even see this being fine if you buffed its attack to 5 or 6 at the same time.
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I just drafted the greediest arena deck I've ever made. Is there a way to export arena decks? I know you can do it for constructed.
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Why the hell can't Obsidian Statue just be a good card? I don't want my fucking 9+ cost cards to be situationally good against some decks. I want them to just be good!
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Why the hell can't Obsidian Statue just be a good card? I don't want my fucking 9+ cost cards to be situationally good against some decks. I want them to just be good!

You wouldn't consider it good if it was 6/8 and the deathrattle only killed minions with attack less than its attack?
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My biggest gripe with priest so far is that barnes seems to ALWAYS pull out a 1/1 ysera, that he can then use to eternal servitude out a full power ysera.
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bng_mmmk posted...

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Why the hell can't Obsidian Statue just be a good card? I don't want my fucking 9+ cost cards to be situationally good against some decks. I want them to just be good!

You wouldn't consider it good if it was 6/8 and the deathrattle only killed minions with attack less than its attack?

Yes, that's way worse. Dies and does nothing in way more situations, including just being attacked by The Lich King, probably THE most popular threat right now.

Your main problem isn't even with the card, it's with EZ Priest's ability to cheat big things into play repeatedly. The other problem is you thinking of it of an anti-aggro tool, when it's really anti-everything, and one of the few Priest cards that is unconditionally good.
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Yes, that's way worse. Dies and does nothing in way more situations, including just being attacked by The Lich King, probably THE most popular threat right now.

Your main problem isn't even with the card, it's with EZ Priest's ability to cheat big things into play repeatedly. The other problem is you thinking of it of an anti-aggro tool, when it's really anti-everything, and one of the few Priest cards that is unconditionally good.

"Do nothing" except heal you for 6 and leave the lich king with 2 health, AND prevent the 8 damage from hitting your face or other minions.

And potentially kill another minion of theirs.

That's far from "nothing".

Plus with it at 9 you could still combo it with pint-sized to make it do the same thing to a lot more minions.

(not to mention priest has plenty of ways to deal with lich king)

And it was Dowolf who suggested it was anti-aggro. I was responding to that.
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But you're right about priest being the bigger issue. But it's a lot easier to focus on one card than say "these 4 priest cards need to be reworked in all these ways" which gets a lot more complicated.
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trdl23 posted...

I just drafted the greediest arena deck I've ever made. Is there a way to export arena decks? I know you can do it for constructed.

Anyone?
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bng_mmmk posted...

"Do nothing" except heal you for 6 and leave the lich king with 2 health, AND prevent the 8 damage from hitting your face or other minions.

And potentially kill another minion of theirs.

That's far from "nothing".

Do you see how you had to add more qualifiers to the situation to make it better aside from both Statue and Lich King on an empty board? That's what's making it worse! Plus leaving Lich King at 2 health is not great.
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

bng_mmmk posted...

"Do nothing" except heal you for 6 and leave the lich king with 2 health, AND prevent the 8 damage from hitting your face or other minions.

And potentially kill another minion of theirs.

That's far from "nothing".

Do you see how you had to add more qualifiers to the situation to make it better aside from both Statue and Lich King on an empty board? That's what's making it worse! Plus leaving Lich King at 2 health is not great.

I mean you're basically saying it's only good if it 1-for-1s the Lich King?

And do we need to name all the ways you can do 2 damage?
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Ok how about this

leave it at 4/8 but make the deathrattle destroy an enemy minion with 8 or less attack
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It's basically just Deadly Shot on a 4/8 body.

It's slightly above Primordial Drake which is what a 9 drop should be: Above an 8 drop
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No, I'm just giving an easy example based on that criteria you gave me and the biggest threat in Standard currently. 8 Health is much less defensive than 9 health, the amount of life you gain per hit is largely irrelevant in control matchups, and reducing the range of things the deathrattle can kill makes it weaker. You can maybe kill more things with the higher attack but it'll also be easier for the opponent to deal with.

And make no mistake, if you leave up The Lich King at 2 health, you got 3-for-1ed. He gets two cards from the effect and a value trade. It's not like the current Statue matches up extremely well against TLK, but limiting the deathrattle makes it even worse.
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VeryInsane posted...

It's basically just Deadly Shot on a 4/8 body.

It's slightly above Primordial Drake which is what a 9 drop should be: Above an 8 drop

Consider also that when you play it you only have 1 mana leftover, which can't often be used.

At least when you played Primordial Drake you can squeeze in a HP if nothing else.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Consider also that when you play it you only have 1 mana leftover, which can't often be used.

At least when you played Primordial Drake you can squeeze in a HP if nothing else.

Yeah that's actually a big deal, 9 mana cards have to be much, much better than 8-drops to make up for them eating your hero power and coming out a turn slower. Applies to 10 mana cards too but 9 mana has the same issues for less power level.

RIP Call of the Wild, RIP Hunter
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

And make no mistake, if you leave up The Lich King at 2 health, you got 3-for-1ed. He gets two cards from the effect and a value trade. It's not like the current Statue matches up extremely well against TLK, but limiting the deathrattle makes it even worse.

4-for-1, since you still have to deal two more damage to it with something.
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

reducing the range of things the deathrattle can kill makes it weaker

That was my intention, yes.

Anyway, I'm feeling better now so consider that /rant. I'll go back to crying every time I see it in my bad deck that has no place in the meta.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

VeryInsane posted...

It's basically just Deadly Shot on a 4/8 body.

It's slightly above Primordial Drake which is what a 9 drop should be: Above an 8 drop

Consider also that when you play it you only have 1 mana leftover, which can't often be used.

At least when you played Primordial Drake you can squeeze in a HP if nothing else.

Or Equality/Sleep

I need to think of something that beats all Druids @_@
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd-7s5xuJck

I'm not a fan of Reynad as a streamer, but it's nice to see he agrees with me on the issue that is Innervate.
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VeryInsane posted...

https://hsreplay.net/articles/25/death-knight-hero-performance-overview

Pretty cool article about the performance of the Death Knights stat wise

so frost lich jaina has around the same deck win rate in arena as any of the other strongest death knights, an insanely high played card win rate in arena, but you're twice as likely to draft it. looks like warlock is the only thing on the same power level as mage when it comes to the bonus received from the synergy drafting pool. except warlock has the downside of multiple bad legendary cards that also get added to the pool.

hmmmm

it's almost as if Mage has some kind of advantage due to the recent changes in arena. now imagine if someone was complaining about this exact thing resulting from this exact change, and was given shit over it for like 100 posts...
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oh for god's sake get off your high horse.

this sort of blind adherence to stats is really dumb. Wow, if someone's in a position they can spend 9 mana summoning a 3/6, they're probably winning! If they're playing mage, they're probably winning! Wow, if they got a legendary, they're probably winning!

My argument is that mage was weakened by this expansion, and that mage would be stronger if Jaina weren't a synergy card. I stand by both those statements; no evidence has been contributed to oppose either.
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yeah just data collected from 40,000 matches that states

1. you're twice as likely to draft it
2. it has the same high win rate (or higher) than any other DK card (except Warlock which is on the same power level)

this is clearly not sufficient evidence
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dowolf posted...

oh for god's sake get off your high horse.

this sort of blind adherence to stats is really dumb.

also the cognitive dissonance here is amazing

accuses me of being on a 'high horse'

continues to insist that he's so incredible that he's too good to trust in stats, because his own personal opinion is more valuable than 40,000 data points
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Hey Maria should I play Big Priest, Highlander Priest, Jade Rogue, or Miracle Rogue

I may drop Valeera from Miracle
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10-1 now with Greedy McGreederson Druid arena. I'll post the deck once it's over since nobody has told me if I can export it :(
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VeryInsane posted...

Hey Maria should I play Big Priest, Highlander Priest, Jade Rogue, or Miracle Rogue

I may drop Valeera from Miracle

Jade Rogue looks really interesting and fun to play. I'd probably play that if I had the choice.

trdl23 posted...

10-1 now with Greedy McGreederson Druid arena. I'll post the deck once it's over since nobody has told me if I can export it :(

hmm... if there's a way to do it I don't know how. did you use any kind of deck tracker when drafting the deck? I know if you use hearth arena they save the deck list for you.
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You're right. I do present arguments. I back them up with analysis performed by players who are better than me. Looking at 40k games where the results may or may not be even meaningful, and where I can come up with good reasons for the variation you put so much stock in, is not only nonpersuasive, it is boring.
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MariaTaylor posted...

hmm... if there's a way to do it I don't know how. did you use any kind of deck tracker when drafting the deck? I know if you use hearth arena they save the deck list for you.

HearthArena feels like cheating, so I don't do it anymore. Plus I never would have made this deck if I were doing it!

I'll just raw-post it. And screenshot it if I get to 12. At final boss now.
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12-1 EZ BIG EZ DRAFT

List: (Cost in parentheses)

2x Innervate (0)
1x Mark of the Lotus (1)
1x Crazed Alchemist (2)
1x Loot Hoarder (2)
1x Mark of the Wild (2)
1x Power of the Wild (2)
1x Sunfury Protector (2)
1x Tortollan Forager (2) -- This guy did some damn work. Cards he got me include: Sindragosa, Antonidas, Blazecaller, and that Corpse Flower guy.
1x Twisted Worgen (2)
1x Igneous Elemental (3)
1x Jade Blossom (3)
1x Mindbreaker (3) -- Also great when your opponent's HP is better than yours, which is always as Druid.
1x Toxic Sewer Ooze (3)
1x Vryghoul (3)
1x Backroom Bouncer (4)
1x Mire Keeper (4)
1x Swipe (4)
1x Tanaris Hogchopper (4)
1x Psych-o-Tron (5)
1x Servant of Kalimos (5)
1x Spreading Plague (5)
2x Moonglade Portal (6)
1x Ancient of War (7)
2x Bonemare (7)
2x Ultimate Infestation (10)

This deck was able to go big AND go wide. Innervate out giant monsters like Bonemare and Ancient or just break your opponent's curve with the Innervates and ramps. I never cast both Infestations in a game but having 2 meant I always found one of them. Spreading Plague + random dudes into Mark of the Lotus felt filthy. Beautifully filthy. My favorite deck I've ever drafted.

The only loss was to an absolute nightmare of a priest who had Raza and DK Anduin and every single removal spell at the exact right time.

EDIT: I should note I high-rolled pretty well with the portals. I don't think I ever got worse than a 6/6 vanilla, and once I got Illidan. Then again, there aren't many bad 6-drops like there are 5s except Big Time Racketeer.
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jesus christ that's disgusting.

like, the only weak card is the servant of kalimos (I assume that was your forced synergy?) and maybe the Vryghoul, depending on how many ping-classes you're facing.
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congrats on 12 wins

also two bonemare and two ultimate infestation sounds insane
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VeryInsane posted...

I played against a Priest that got four Obsidian Statues and still won. As an Aggro deck

Granted.... I was able to push through with double devolve

Yeah, I don't think this counts. Try killing them in a way that forces you to sac a minion and tell me the same thing.

VeryInsane posted...

It's basically just Deadly Shot on a 4/8 body.

It's slightly above Primordial Drake which is what a 9 drop should be: Above an 8 drop

I'd hardly say it's slightly above Primordial Drake. Plus, PD was considered one of the most powerful cards of its set, and got run by basically everybody. So making a card better than that is like saying "oh, we only made it slightly better than Muster for Battle."

Primordial Drake does a Volcanic Potion to the board (3 mana). Obsidian Statue does Deadly Shot -- also 3 mana -- and has lifesteal. Lifesteal on a 4/8 is certainly worth more than 1 mana. It's not uncommon for the priest to gain 12 health from the statue. The other very important part is that its kill effect is a deathrattle rather than a battlecry, which means that it isn't meaningless when the priest cheats it out again. Plus it counts for stuff like N'Zoth and Awaken the Makers if they should be relevant.
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dowolf posted...

jesus christ that's disgusting.

like, the only weak card is the servant of kalimos (I assume that was your forced synergy?) and maybe the Vryghoul, depending on how many ping-classes you're facing.

Yeah, that was forced, though I chewed through my deck so quickly that I almost always found Igneous to activate him.

I didn't face all that many ping classes; or at least when I did, they couldn't ping him for value.
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So I just watched a vid of someone using defile on grim patrons...a most unfortunate interaction.
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deathrattle is much weaker than battlecry since you can control it
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Arena #5
I was Offered: Warlock/Warrior/Hunter
I Picked: Hunter

Just going to go with what I know this time.

Draft: My synergy picks were Tomb Lurker and Scavenging Hyena. Tier list said that Cloaked Huntress is better but I definitely feel more comfortable in my ability to make SH work. Especially drafting Hunter there's a decent chance that I'll pull a good number of Beasts if I try. I did get Call of the Wild which is good, but was offered several cases were all three picks were bad. Overall deck quality came out good but not great. Another weird curve with a huge lack of 4 drops. Not sure if this is a current problem with drafting right now or if it's just happening to me. I'm definitely going to start paying more attention to it in future drafts. I'm just straight up getting offered way less four drops and having a hard time filling out that part of the curve as a result.

Game 1: Vs Mage. I went First. Did not draw a one drop. His early board was weak and he tried to face race me for some reason. Did not go so well for him. Topped off with Call of the Wild to finish him. Win.

Game 2: Vs Warlock. I went Second. A really weird short attrition game where he ran me out of resources fast but I also shredded his life total. Ended up being very close while feeling like a stomp in my favor. He had answers every single turn until he ran out. And if he had just ONE more answer I probably would have had no way to reload and would have lost the game. The invisible knife edge. Win.

Game 3: Vs Priest. I went First. Great opening hand. Alleycat, Razormaw, Eggnapper opening curve. Then I drew into Hyena for the ultimate range of options on my first few turns. He played a 2/1 in response so the Hyena ended up being the better option. I traded in one of my cats and ended up with a 1/1 and 4/3 on board on turn 2. He got Patient Assassin off of forbidden shaping. Never lucky Maria. Still got the hunter classic turn 7 lethal though. Win.

Game 4: Vs Shaman. I went First. Fair opener. I had a one drop, but had to play a secret on turn 2 because of no better options. Topdecked some hyena value on turn 4. Scalebane on turn 5. My board gets out of control fast and there's nothing he can do. Even Volcano, flooding the board, followed by Thrall Deathseer doesn't save him because his life total is already so low. I literally got Emerald Reaver lethal on him. Funniest thing to happen to me in Arena for a while. Win.

Game 5: Vs Priest. I went Second. REALLY BAD opening hand. Not only did I draw unplayable heavy cards early on, but this means i'm going to be top decking 1 drops later in the game. I did get to play Daring Reporter onto an empty board which is always fairly good. Then got it behind a Psych-o-Tron. Made the best of a bad situation overall. Struggled through the mid game trying to preserve my heavy cards as much as possible since I might need them later, while knowing I needed to push tempo or risk losing the game outright. Ultimately I managed to push trough and get Call of the Wild lethal. Win.

At 5-0 I think this is a good place to call it a night. I'll try to finish up this run tomorrow and hope it continues to go this well!
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