Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why are you playing Spiteful Summoner in the year 2018
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Is it? I haven't seen any Spiteful decks on my ladder or the high legend ladder that I've watched on Twitch.
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Some people just dont know what skill actually is.

But ohhhhh man even dragon Paladin is a lot of fun. Chillblade Champion is my newest sub in (over Twilight Guardian)

it has been frequently cited that spiteful decks really suffer at higher level of play because of how inflexible the deck is. Its a really good deck against bad players (and most players are bad)
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Getting a Twig as Rogue is so filthy. I love it.
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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.

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.

Makes sense. Odd Pally has so much reload and most of Control Mage's board clears are expensive, so you are often forced to use your resources inefficiently just to keep the Pally from running you over. Control Mage just comes down to whoever gets their Jaina out first and Burn Mage can often just kill you before you can start gaining armor off Artificer.

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.

It loses to Shudderwok and Quest Priest. It does decently against Cubelock and Even Warlock. Control Warlock, it really depends on if you have polymorph for Rin. Be careful about dropping Doomsayers post-turn 5 in this matchup for that reason.

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.

This has generally been my experience. My Control Mage probably has the best winrate overall out of all my decks, but I just can't bring myself to ladder that much with it because the games just last so long.
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What to expect playing Big Spell Mage versus other decks at high legend.

Paladin
-You are favored but not as much as you might think. The spread is only slightly favored for mage among most ranks but if you're at high legend you should be good and it'll tip more in your favor. I have a very good win rate over Paladin and as long as you don't panic early you should come up on top.

Quest Priest
-An extremely difficult matchup mainly because they have benedictus. Honestly, I think without the card mage might even be favored overall (at least 50/50 depending on build) but this is a matchup that is almost always fatigue and you almost always lose in fatigue.

Mind Blast Priest
-This is another matchup that is hard to win, even for builds like mine that are teched against decks like these. Basically, you need to keep your health up and save your artificers to armor out of reach. You really only have one game plan here and the priest can just draw slightly better and win.

Control Warlock
-Against bad players the mage should win. But against good players the warlock is favored purely due to rin. However, if the warlock is unlucky and they dont get rin from a stonehill or draw it, or find a way to kill it off the mage actually can contend with control much better than they can cube.

Cube Warlock
-This is a more skill intensive matchup than control warlock which really only comes down to one card. But cube has since started to play rin too, but also has much targets the mage has to deal with. Sometimes you have to polymoprh a giant and think if they drop rin or have a doomguard i have to just leave it/kill it. Ideally you want to poly the doomguards somehow so he can't burst you with guldan. Even if you kill the weapon after its played the matchup is hard.

Even Warlock
-Despite having rin, they can't stonehill it and the potential burst and polymorph targets this deck has is a lot worse than the other decks. I've played this matchup a lot recently and I think it's heavily in favor of the mage unless rin comes down and somehow dies. Remember even warlock does not have access to dark pact making killing rin early a lot more difficult and saving polymorph for it a lot easier.

Spell Hunter
-Control Mage is favored but im not quite sure by how much. The hunter dk hero power is better in the matchup but often times what happens is that the hunter jsut runs out of resources and has to rely on it. A lot of hunters I feel misplay and play cards like tracking super late in the game when fatigue is a factor. Hunters can steal it with some powerful build a beasts, but once a mage has control they won most of the time.

Quest Rogue
-You should concede when the quest is played.

Odd Rogue
-I'm pretty sure the mage is favored here too. This is a matchup I've always done well in and it often comes down to if the rogue can kill me on the one turn they have the chance to and if they can't they lose. Most of the time they can't.

Tempo Mage
-One of your worst matchups mainly because you don't have good ways to trigger counterspell. In metas where this deck is played a lot I tech in that card that gives you a mirror image purely for this matchup.

Taunt Druid
-Depends on how lucky you are. A lot of times it comes down to a 50/50 on witching hour and the result of that is the entire game.

Any Combo deck
-You are basically unfavored and if you win you were probably lucky.
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I hit legend through the most crazy way

Was Spell Hunter playing Midrange Druid was on the ropes like, all game but managed to win by getting armor gain from DK Rexxar and getting three freezing traps all hitting his Leeroy
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It still blows my mind that Benedictus is seeing unironic, non-meme play at high ranks.
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New brawl is super easy to rack up wins.

Build a deck of 20 low cost battlecry minions. Win games. 4-0 in no time at all so far. I might just use this one to hit the 100g daily max every day this week.
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I made Zoo for the brawl. It worked.
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trdl23 posted...

Netdecked most of Kiblers take on Tess. Enjoying it a lot more now. Spectral Scimitar is the real deal.

List?

Tess has been played so few times in my Tess deck.
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I played twenty 1/1 minions for the brawl. My opponent played nothing bigger than a 1/2. Thankfully I got the better spells because that game wasn't about to be as short as I imagine a lot of them would be.
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My opponent conceded after I played Acidic Swamp Ooze.
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o_O I didn't even think about that.

The pirate who removes a durability should work as well because it only has 1 durability. 4 chances to win game?
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The pole respawns the next turn.

This one is fun and i gained 70g while watching a movie.
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Also im going to finish around rank 3 this month which feels good since i started the month at 25 having not ranked in awhile.

Since ill begin next month at 7/8 ill make an effort to hit legend.

Togwaggle druid is life.

It feels like i have to make meaningful decisions and that having knowledge of the opponents deck allows me to navigate towards victory better.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

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.

Someone quote me so ulti will see it and either pony up the replays or shut up.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Forceful_Dragon posted...

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.

Someone quote me so ulti will see it and either pony up the replays or shut up.

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why do you care
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Also im going to finish around rank 3 this month which feels good since i started the month at 25 having not ranked in awhile.

Since ill begin next month at 7/8 ill make an effort to hit legend.

Togwaggle druid is life.

It feels like i have to make meaningful decisions and that having knowledge of the opponents deck allows me to navigate towards victory better.

It's crazy that we are in a meta where legends like Togwaggle, Archbishop Benedictus, and King Krush are being played in viable non-meme decks. I guess the nerfs must have worked as intended.
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I'm just in it for the drama
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https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/162396569289752576/451606196638711809/unknown.png

Just your run-of-the-mill Standard ladder match with two Yoggs.
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Every class is good in this meta

I think people discover Cubelock is still very good and it ends up changing but all nine classes have a place right now and theres no bad class
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What is this I don't even
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This reminds me of when I went something like a dozen arena runs without getting 5 gold as a reward.

Good times.
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Were committed to exploring new ideas in Arena, keeping the experience novel and fresh, improving variety, and providing players with greater agency to make more interesting decisions. Weve noticed that the variety of picks isnt as diverse as we would like it to be, and wed love to improve it. To achieve that, were making significant changes with Update 11.2:

We are adding new buckets that overlap halfway between the existing buckets. For example, a new bucket between buckets 2 and 3 will contain the weakest half of the cards from bucket 2 and the strongest half of the cards from bucket 3.
There will be 6 new buckets for non-Legendary cards (for a total of 13), and 2 new buckets for Legendary cards (for a total of 5).
Additionally, the strongest cards in the best bucket and the weakest cards in the worst bucket do not appear in the overlapping buckets, effectively reducing their rate of appearance.
This change gives more cards a chance to be the best pick in their round, as they will be paired up against a greater variety of other cards. That will result in a more diverse selection of cards appearing in games and getting picked in any given draft.

sounds like the current drafting system of arena will remain, but we'll see spikeridged steed less often. can't wait for this update.
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what I'd like to see next is for the bonus to spells and weapons be removed. epic/rare/common differences while we're at it too. under the new system cards are already weighted based on how good they are. there's no reason for spells and weapons, which already tend to be the problematic and super powerful cards that cause issues in arena, to receive an additional bonus on top of whatever else the algorithm decides. and do we really need cards like Bonemare having an occurence bonus just because they happen to have a white gem on them instead of blue or purple??? it makes no sense.

just the let the damn algorithm do its damn job.

still not 100% sure how I'd handle legendaries because some are trash and some are deck defining. this kinda makes it seem like they should just be tossed into the buckets without regard for rarity, same as the commons and rares and epics. but it's hard to say if this would really work well in practice.
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New Data Reaper is out. Control Mage listed at the low end of tier 1/2 depending on how you look at it.

What's more surprising is Taunt Warrior apparently having the highest winrate in the game. I can't recall even seeing one since the nerfs.
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I've seen a handful on my ladder climb

It's pretty good but it's largely because there's no Cubelocks that eat them (I think that deck is 100% coming back btw)
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I got golden hogger from my brawl pack. I wasnt paying attention and when the innkeeper screamed I was like wtf
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Anyone here ever participate in a level 1 hogger raid in WoW? Good times.

Ive seen a few taunt warriors as well. But togwaggle druid eats them so I've barely noticed.
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turbopuns2 posted...

Anyone here ever participate in a level 1 hogger raid in WoW? Good times.

Yes lol
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Server randomly down? Time to roll human on a Latin American server lol

Got to legend for the first time, playing mostly shudderwock shaman.

Basically winstreaked from rank 5 to rank 1 (playing infrequently on my phone) at which point I decided I might as well do a serious legend push, and then...stalled at rank 1 for ages.

I was facing a lot of people in low legend, and people in low legend play fucking joke decks. Like...Kathrena Hunter with Dire Frenzy to use on King Krush.

Turns out joke decks beat the shit out of Shudderwock, or at least my version of Shudderwock. The deck I was running was basically a giant middle finger to aggro. 2 doomsayers, 2 lightning storms, Thalnos, 2 volcanos, 2 Healing Rain, Hagatha, 2 Tar Creeper, 1 Primordial Drake. 8 board wipes, 9 counting Shudderwock. Plenty of taunt and heal. Also a bunch of draw.

All of these cards are bad against 11/11 King Krushes, and I was hovering around low rank 1, high rank 2 for ages.

So...I started looking around, saw the Keleseth version. Cuts the doomsayers, which is fine cause they're bad against 11/11 King Krushes. Runs more 1 drops (Ice to Meet you, which is good against 11/11 King Krushes, plus Lightning Bolts), and all around is capable of pressuring in the earlygame (sometimes) with a Keleseth draw against the over the top "I don't give a shit about losing to aggro anymore cause I can't derank from legend" decks.

Overall...

Super good matchup against Baku Rogue. Like 80-20.

Super awful matchup against Miracle Rogue with fal'dorei strider and quest rogue. From the perspective of this deck, Miracle and Quest are basically the same thing--don't do much in the earlygame, and flood the board with 4/4s in the lategame. 4/4s are just big enough that most of the AoEs just miss them; Hagatha and lightning storm don't kill.

I think I had 100% winrate against Paladins, but TBH I didn't face very many.

I generally did good against even Warlock, but that's because I've been spectating a friend playing even warlock since way before the nerfs (old handlock player, hadn't played in years, got tempted back by shiny new handlock).

Cubelock...I haven't faced a lot of them, but it was pretty good against this deck pre-nerf. Cubelock swings wildly depending on draw RNG, though. Like...weapon with doomguards cubes, and sac pacts in hand is disgusting and almost impossible to beat. If they don't weapon or you break it, though, they're unlikely to do shit.

Recruit Warrior and Even Recruit warrior is a nightmare matchup. (It's pretty close to facing 11/11 King Crushes).

Most other warriors are pretty control oriented and just die to the combo. Occasionally Quest warrior will get lucky and rag will repeatedly hit your face till you die. (Lost a final boss into legend match because of a 25% rag shot).

Aggro mage is the one aggro deck that sometimes can punch through. Taunts on curve (Tar Creeper in particular) is pretty good to stabilize a little, but you really need to draw healing rain. I actually suspect the Keleseth version is slightly better in this matchup, as it runs Lightning Bolts (kills Mana Wyrm, and triggers counterspell without spending like...4 mana).

Control Jaina mage was an easy win usually.

Token druid is a nightmare matchup. They will get a board full of 1/1s with deathrattle summon a 2/2. You had better have Lightning Storm + Volcano to clear every time.

Taunt druid should be an easy matchup, although near legend I started facing people who would aggressively try to mill combo pieces with double naturalize, and had some bad beats to that. I think I actually need to slow down in this match a little, be less gung-ho about dropping Hemet and drawing cards. Like...Hex already fucks them over pretty hard. Their boards, while they can be obnoxious to kill (immune to volcano) are generally not very scary.

Spiteful is...probably a bad matchup, but I only faced one.
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Priests...Diamond Spellstone priest is a horrifying matchup. They can have their entire deck drawn while you still have 20 cards in your deck, because psychic scream. (Plus you know 48 damage mind blasts). I beat it once when a priest just dropped Velen on the board, didn't death their own velen, and I hexed it, but otherwise lost to it every time.

Mind Blast pirest is...hope they don't have Anduin on 8, but not too bad if they don't have him early.

Inner fire priests...I've only faced one but I lost.

Spiteful priest is probably a bad matchup.

Most other priests are pretty easy. They have one scary card I really don't want to face, which is Nightscale Matriarch (which can create an enormous board that Volcano can't kill).
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Aw yeah, finished the month at a lower rank than I started it at! That's what I get for playing nothing but decks built solely for quests and that terrible Stonetusk OTK deck in ladder.
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