Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Drafted an arena deck centered around Lady in White. I want to do it at least once.
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VeryInsane posted...

Man this is probably the first time Hunter is not only good, but fun

So sick of playing Midrange

Hunter has been fun since Deathstalker Rexxar.

It has been good since Kobolds.

The biggest difference is you aren't just winning games on turn 4 anymore.
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curse of weakness flew under my radar because it's not good enough to see use in standard play, but after a few arena runs I really started to notice how much it kinda annoys me. it's like a more clunky Ice Block or Frost Nova, giving one class (Warlock in this case) exclusive access to the ability to buy an extra turn. only happened to me one time and I'd probably not have been as frustrated by it except for the fact that 1. I've had to put up with Ice Block for so long, absolutely loathing that card, and we just finally got rid of it from standard recently and 2. Warlock is already one of the best classes in the game, so them having strong exclusive options is inherently stupid and annoying.

nowhere near as bad of course as Paladin dominating arena, standard, and constructed, but yeah.

VeryInsane posted...

The thing with Hunter is before Kobolds it was basically just Midrange and Face for so long, you couldnt really do all that much else with the class. Other classes at least had some sort of unique deck to build around each expansion or some sort of cool combo to play Hunter didnt apart from like, Call of the Wild and even that was a curve topper

Spell Hunter is great, Recruit Hunter is pretty fun, OTK is a meme but it can be a fun one and even Hybrid Hunter has some cool tricks with the secret package

just depends on what kind of things you like to do, really. most people have a psychological barrier of entry for playing aggro or face decks because they think playing control literally makes them smarter. although they'll play basically the exact same decks if you call it tempo mage instead of face mage.

I've always enjoys playing Hunter because the games are fast and you can punish the opponent or get punished with very quick response time. that feeling is often missing for me with other decks, and yeah, there will be cases where a subtle misplay can come back to bite you later, but there's also instances where you can make a huge misplay and then be forgiven because the game goes on for enough turns that you had time to correct it.
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also Midrange has been unplayable for a really long time and so has Face, really. so I think your analysis doesn't quite hit the mark either way. as for playing aggro decks as Hunter there's been plenty of nuance as to how you build them and it has changed as different cards rotated in and out. plus the meta you plan on facing is going to cause you to adjust your list accordingly.

it's basically the same as playing any other deck, really.
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This is the deck I've been running. I cut the darkness and zola. I find that even though the darkness is like really good versus mind blast priest, I find that they have not been common where I am and quest priest is probably more popular right now. Zola just almost never goes off on a good minion.

When played properly this deck absolutely wrecks even warlock. Although there is also that even warlock is a new deck and people have not properly learned how to play it yet. But as long as I can 1 for 1 on giants and keep his other minions non threatening I basically win unless he some how has Rin die before I can poly or if somehow I can't azalina seals out.

However, the deck also loses pretty badly to shudderwock shaman and some other control matchups (like quest priest) that have become somewhat popular. It also probably loses to Recruit Hunter. Probably a push versus secret. It's hard to say, really depends how good the beasts rexar gets is and how quickly I can find Jaina.

In the mirror it's who finds Jaina first.

### Control V1.9
# Class: Mage
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raven
#
# 2x (1) Arcane Artificer
# 2x (2) Doomsayer
# 2x (2) Raven Familiar
# 1x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 2x (3) Gluttonous Ooze
# 2x (3) Stonehill Defender
# 1x (3) Voodoo Doll
# 2x (4) Polymorph
# 1x (4) Witchwood Piper
# 2x (5) Dragon's Fury
# 1x (5) Rotten Applebaum
# 2x (6) Blizzard
# 2x (6) Meteor
# 1x (6) Toki, Time-Tinker
# 1x (7) Azalina Soulthief
# 1x (7) Baron Geddon
# 1x (7) Flamestrike
# 1x (8) Sindragosa
# 1x (9) Alexstrasza
# 1x (9) Dragoncaller Alanna
# 1x (9) Frost Lich Jaina
#
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Even Dragon Paladin has been okay. Nice midrange curve with plenty of endgame control and threats. Lots of fun. Mmmm.

I pity the poor sap I just faced in arena at 4 wins. He got to watch me draw 4 cards from blessing of wisdom and then 4 more from cult master. Just conceded at that point lol. I had a dominant board with like 9 cards to his 4.

Should I dust call and spiteful or no?

My only standard decks use both cards...
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What would you play next? Just depends on if you have the cards/dust.

I don't think I care about the spitefuls. But quest pally is my jam
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I...feel like quest pally doesn't really need call? Could be wrong. I mean I see how it's nice but feels unnecessary.

No reason to not dust them because you can just craft them again later at no additional cost.
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turbopuns2 posted...

I...feel like quest pally doesn't really need call? Could be wrong. I mean I see how it's nice but feels unnecessary.

It has a ton of strength, but it's not necessary. Probably can just jam some blessings.

Feels good to beat a taunt druid with quest pally though.
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In the vein of showing the power of Hunter, I decided to try out some good ol' Reno Hunter for the first time in a long time. Dane had a video last night that boasted an 85% winrate that had Dreadscale, Houndmaster Shaw, and Feign Death in it. I didn't have those cards, so I replaced them with Unstable Ghoul, Flanking Strike, and Faceless Manipulator. Then to try and shore up my matchup against aggro, I figured Explosive Trap might swing more games than a King's Elekk. Two of those seemed like downgrades and the other two were fairly drastic changes, so I really had no idea how well my deck would perform, but I hoped to at least stay above 50%.

### Reno Baybee
# Class: Hunter
# Format: Wild
#
# 1x (1) Candleshot
# 1x (1) Hunter's Mark
# 1x (1) Play Dead
# 1x (1) Tracking
# 1x (2) Dirty Rat
# 1x (2) Explosive Trap
# 1x (2) Flare
# 1x (2) Freezing Trap
# 1x (2) Glaivezooka
# 1x (2) Mad Scientist
# 1x (2) Plated Beetle
# 1x (2) Quick Shot
# 1x (2) Unstable Ghoul
# 1x (2) Wandering Monster
# 1x (3) Animal Companion
# 1x (3) Eaglehorn Bow
# 1x (3) Mind Control Tech
# 1x (3) Stitched Tracker
# 1x (3) Unleash the Hounds
# 1x (4) Flanking Strike
# 1x (4) Piloted Shredder
# 1x (4) Spiritsinger Umbra
# 1x (5) Carnivorous Cube
# 1x (5) Corpse Widow
# 1x (5) Faceless Manipulator
# 1x (5) Sludge Belcher
# 1x (6) Deathstalker Rexxar
# 1x (6) Reno Jackson
# 1x (6) Sylvanas Windrunner
# 1x (10) N'Zoth, the Corruptor

I was not expecting to go 9-0 with this abomination, but there ya go. I beat two Shudderwock Shamans (one was a fellow Reno deck), an Even Shaman, a Big(ish) Priest (running Sylvanas? It stole my Plated Beetle and that and Barnes kept ruining his spellstones and Resurrects), a Spell Hunter, a Midrange Hunter, an Odd Rogue, and an Even Warlock.

Then I figured Burn Mage would be a real problem for this deck, but the one I ran into promptly got run over by a Turn 6 Deathstalker with Reno waiting in hand. On turn 9, I was able to play a 4-mana 3/6 Lifesteal/Rush minion and then Faceless it for a cool 6 points of healing every turn, which prompted a quick concession. Had one game where I topdecked Reno at 5 hp on Turn 7 against the Even Shaman (I had Sludge Belcher in hand which may have stabilized, but I didn't have to take that risk), and I think every other game turned into a complete blowout.

I think DeathStalker Rexxar is my favorite card ever printed. I used to really love it before, but now that the last two expansions are included, it's ridiculously good. Vicious Scalehide being a beast is sooooooo helpful for Deathstalker to stabilize. If you get it with a Bittertide Hydra combo, it's absurd. 7-mana 9/11 with Lifesteal and Rush and absolutely no drawback. Every time it takes damage, it does 3 damage to you then heals you back up for 3, so nothing happens.
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MrSmartGuy posted...

Every time it takes damage, it does 3 damage to you then heals you back up for 3, so nothing happens.

What is the interaction if the initial damage would take you to 0?
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That scenario is actually very unlikely, and would basically have to be purposefully set up, unless you only get the 2/1 Lifesteal minion without Rush, or your opponent has no minions, because you're going to get the 9 life from it attacking before anything else.

However, I would have to imagine it works similarly to a Lifesteal weapon. Which is to say if you attack something that would kill you with a Lifesteal weapon, but then it heals you back up above 0, you survive.

I don't know that for certain, though. I'm sure someone's done the experimentation.
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Control Mage is my new favourite deck. I'm kicking myself for not crafting the necessary cards for it much earlier.

Just reached rank 5, final boss was a Kingsbane Rogue (Fuck Kingsbane Rogue). The sequence of events that led to my win was pretty crazy.

I somehow managed to survive a dozen 4/4 spiders over the course of 4 turns, and just when I thought I had him out valued and exhausted all of his resources, I get hit with an Azalina out of nowhere, which takes about 7 cards, including a Polymorph, Meteor, Baron Geddon, and Deathwing that I got off of Sindragosa.

The game continues on, and again I slowly exhaust his resources while attempting to get a face hit in every turn to not allow him to swing with Kingsbane. It gets to the point where he's in fatigue but doing Kingsbane things to not take damage and he's got 4 cards left in hand, with the Deathwing being the only threat of note.

I draw Arcane Keysmith, and play it just because I don't really have anything else to do, and it takes a second before I notice the Mirror Entity. I pick it, he plays Deathwing, and instantly concedes.

That's Hearthstone.

Also fuck Kingsbane.
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Monster Hunt BEATED

I feel like I earned a lot better reward than a card back
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Tom Bombadil posted...

I feel like I earned a lot better reward than a card back

Sounds like Hearthstone
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Playing spell hunter I am constantly mystified by the number of times people just attack into secrets. You have a dude on board and I just played a secret on turn two? Definitely attack into the wandering monster in order to lose the board. On 3 health after flipping the board and clearing with a Tarim? Better attack face with my weapon into the almost 100% explosive trap so my opponent is at 26 heath instead of 28.
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I can understand playing around the secrets when possible. Not attacking into an Explosive Trap and instead waiting to trade your minions into something, for instance.

But sometimes I see 3+ turns of not attacking in and at that point it's like, damn, just get it over with. You've already lost more value by waiting all that time than you would have just attacking in the first place.
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My experience so far in attempting to climb ladder with Control Mage:

https://m.imgur.com/r/TimAndEric/hWfismm
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Its to get rid of the secrets before Eaglehorn shows up. If you never attack, hunter will eventually just win.

davidponte posted...

But sometimes I see 3+ turns of not attacking in and at that point it's like, damn, just get it over with. You've already lost more value by waiting all that time than you would have just attacking in the first place.

Yeah, pretty much this. Granted there are some pretty terrible players in Heartstone so I'd entirely believe that the people he's thinking of really were just playing poorly. But there's also cases where there's no true way to "play around" some of the secrets, and this is the true power of them. You can create situations where the opponent has to either trigger the secret and give you free tempo, or they have to avoid triggering the secret and neuter the advancement of their own strategy. It's also really common for people to get flustered and waste an entire turn or make misplays just trying to figure out which secret you're using.

Basically, for me, when someone plays a secret, I usually find that the best play is to simply do whatever would lead to the most optimal result for myself. Though there are some exceptions where I know they're very likely to have played a specific secret, triggering it would be devastating, and playing around it is not too inconvenient. But, otherwise, you literally just can't afford to play around it because if you try it'll lead to you losing anyway. You have to simply advance your win condition and hope they don't have the right secret in play.
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Though if someone is playing a net deck you can generally just know which secret they're using because it's the same one or two everyone else is playing, so there is that advantage.
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I will say that I haven't seen a single person play around Counterspell when I've played Arcane Keysmith, even when I specifically pick it to counter a big spell the following turn.

I've hit multiple turn 5 Call to Arms and Emerald Spellstones with it. It's like people don't think it's a possibility.
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davidponte posted...

I will say that I haven't seen a single person play around Counterspell when I've played Arcane Keysmith, even when I specifically pick it to counter a big spell the following turn.

I've hit multiple turn 5 Call to Arms and Emerald Spellstones with it. It's like people don't think it's a possibility.

you're looking at it the wrong way. they might think there is a chance that it is Counterspell but they have no way to play around it, and if they don't play their biggest spell right now they have a 0% chance of winning the game. obviously in that situation you can't afford to play around Counterspell and you have to go for it.

from your opponent perspective there's only around a 30% chance that you randomly got Counterspell, but there's a 100% chance they lose the game immediately if they don't successfully play Call to Arms.
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I was playing a Recruit Warrior a few days ago as Control Mage, and my two Keysmiths got Mirror Entity and Frozen Clone. The entire game revolved around me trying to get rid of stuff in my hand so I constantly had 7 cards, and the game was basically mine, since I had 5 forms of large target removal.

Sure enough, the only minion that didn't get recruited was Grommash, and I was nicely given 3 of them to ping and send toward his face for the win.
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I hit rank 5 with togwaggle druid. It is a lot of fun.
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CybrMonkey posted...

Playing spell hunter I am constantly mystified by the number of times people just attack into secrets. You have a dude on board and I just played a secret on turn two? Definitely attack into the wandering monster in order to lose the board. On 3 health after flipping the board and clearing with a Tarim? Better attack face with my weapon into the almost 100% explosive trap so my opponent is at 26 heath instead of 28.

It just really just depends on the deck. If Im playing Aggro and have a reload, depending on the turn, often times I should just trigger it and play more stuff. But if Im playing control I just let it sit there because almost all control decks now run at least one (if not two) forms of weapon removal. Or just wait until I get s board clear.
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I hit 500 with Rogue, meaning I now have 500 with every class

So much time used, at least now I can build fun decks (Im around 2 and a half right now, just trying to gather energy for one straight push to it)
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Okay, I think I've been RNG'd enough out of arena today. This is getting obnoxious. Hooray Hearthstone.
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I played a big priest last night in wild that literally summoned 10 Obsidian Statues, beginning on turn 3.

I hexed the last one for lethal.
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Netdecked most of Kiblers take on Tess. Enjoying it a lot more now. Spectral Scimitar is the real deal.
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davidponte posted...

I can understand playing around the secrets when possible. Not attacking into an Explosive Trap and instead waiting to trade your minions into something, for instance.

But sometimes I see 3+ turns of not attacking in and at that point it's like, damn, just get it over with. You've already lost more value by waiting all that time than you would have just attacking in the first place.

The merit of waiting is you have more minions to trade with theirs on the board and it prevents them from playing a second copy of the secret. Also, it gives you more options for testing for freezing trap.
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If your playing an aggressive deck you dont care about traps like freezing and can reload versus explosive. What sucks the most is like a high roll from wandering. But the aggressive decks have few outs versus explosive in the first place and the deck is reason paladin does well is because it was able to play into the trap and refil the board with stuff again.

If youre playing control you are basically only worried about your life total and not doing damage until you have your desired game state.
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Either I've been incredibly lucky over a decent sample size, or Control Mage is the best deck in the meta right now and nobody knows it.

Over the last few days, I've gone from rank 7 with 4 stars to rank 3 with 1 star, and I've only lost 3 games in the process. I don't have the exact amount of wins, because I played the majority of my games on a tablet, but I'm 7-0 when using deck tracker on PC. There has to be at least another 10 wins in there.

The 3 losses were to an Odd Paladin, a Control Mage, and a Burn Mage.

The one thing I will say is during that time I've yet to see a Warlock, so I'm not sure how that matchup plays out, but other than that, I can't think of any other deck that this loses to.

Token Druid is winnable every time as long as you strategically play board clears, and Taunt Druid instantly concedes when you Polymorph anything, especially the Hadronox. All the Aggro match ups are favourable as well.

The only thing stopping me from cruising to legend right now is time. The games take forever and I've only got just over 2 days left.
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davidponte posted...

Either I've been incredibly lucky over a decent sample size, or Control Mage is the best deck in the meta right now and nobody knows it.

I'm hoping it's the former because if the next meta snapshot comes out and has Control Mage near the top, people are going to start countering it. Currently, it's like no one is ever expecting it when you drop a Raven Familiar on turn 2.
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Control mage always does well pre legend and like mid legend

However at lower legend you face a lot of slow meme decks that just destroy you and at high legend you face other control like decks that just have game plans that destroy you. That and like when Im pushing for a good rank and are in the top 200 in the warlock matchup before like at 500 they would tap themselves out of the game, not use rin well, etc. At 200 they dont tap too much and basically lock the deck out of the game completely.
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I'm running a Control Mage that isn't Big Spell Mage myself. Since I don't have Pyros, Sindragosa, or Baron Geddon, I need a bit more value in the late-game to be able to compete with other Control Decks. Then against other decks, I have to rely on drawing Jaina earlier, so I tried to shore up both fronts by making the deck more even. Instead of relying on Dragon's Fury as my first board clear, I cut them so I could include Frostbolts, Primordial Glyphs, Arcane Intellects, and Elise. Then to get a bit more value in the late-game, I included Toki and Lich King.

Opponents tend to get really confused when you Frostbolt on Turn 2 and Tar Creeper on Turn 3. They get hesitant to overextend after a Turn 7 Flamestrike, and then they can't kill your Turn 8 Lich King. It's performed fairly well for me so far. I even beat a Quest Priest who stole my Jaina with it because I refused to play anything that drew cards and he was stuck with two Arcane Intellects and a bunch of AoE Removal after his Benedictus.
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Are you seriously complaining about skill while playing Spiteful?
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Replays ulti.
Replays.

Like the time you claimed your bottom 5 cards were the specific ones required for you to lose. Give us the replay and we might not assume you are full of crap.
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