Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic 493 - Rise of Shadows Is Upon Us

(+) Yeah! (+)

Rogues are definitely braindead as fuck this expansion.

Speaking of Token Druid, I've been playing and loving Hand Mage but wow Token Druid is not a good matchup for it. Not really even sure what you can do besides hope to discover a bunch of AOE spells.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

they gave Mage a f***ing 3 mana spell that gets them 4 giants for 6 mana total. They're just a bad company with no QC.

I cut that spell from my hand mage deck >_>

Admittedly I don't have Khadgar which is a key synergy card, but like...

If you don't have a minion in play conjurer's calling is bad.

If you do have a minion in play, there's some minions like Twilight Drake which you really don't want to conjurer's Calling.

It's good with Giant, but giant can sometimes end up sitting in hand and not getting played, particularly if you don't draw book of spectres (which tends to mean Giant costs about 6 mana or so).

It's also good with Voodoo Doll, but I only have one of those in the deck. Even then, that's like a 6 mana assassinate summon two random 3 drops; so basically comparable to Vilespine Slayer.

Like...I see why some people run it. It's a solid card. But I don't think it breaks the game.
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GANON1025 posted...

Speaking of Token Druid, I've been playing and loving Hand Mage but wow Token Druid is not a good matchup for it. Not really even sure what you can do besides hope to discover a bunch of AOE spells.

Assuming you're running the high minion Book of Spectres variant, and not the spell variant with Blizzard and Flamestrike that uses Arcane Intellect to draw....

Run Doomsayer, run Meteorologist, run Dragonmaw Scorchers, I might consider running Batterhead since it's an on-curve way of countering The Forest's Aid.

But yeah, matchup is rough for the low-spell version, since spells are usually how mages beat tokens.

EDIT: oh, also Rabble Bouncers are very good against token druid. (2/7 taunt that costs 1 less for every enemy minion). Watched a streamer add two of those. Baron Geddon is also an interesting thought. EDIT: also, Mossy Horror might work.
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davidponte posted...

I can't buy a couple wins in a row right now. I've played about a dozen games over the last three days, split between Mech Hunter, Mech Paladin, and Bomb Warrior, and have negative two stars to show for it.

This continued to happen as I switched from deck to deck and found myself dropping from 6 to 9. I then came to terms that I was a bad person, queued up Token Druid, and won twelve of my next fifteen games. Unfortunately I've now stalled just before 5 as I've gone 4-4 in my last eight games and have made zero ground.

Fun!
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NPH specialist tournament report:

https://noproshere.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/team-noproshere-specialist-meta-report-6/

Apparently Chef Nomi Priest is a serious deck, currently tier 2, and Token Druid has dropped to tier 4 (in this format), cause the specialist format just lets everyone sideboard against it.
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Messing around with Chef Nomi Priest in Casual (minus one Lazul's Scheme because I haven't crafted anything for the deck yet).

IDK what the writer was on, cutting a Mass Hysteria. At least, in aggro matchups this makes very little sense; I guess if you are expecting to face mostly warriors due to the tournament setting it's fine. But yeah, run mass hysteria. If you face a control warrior whom you expect to play Saboteur, you can mass hysteria on an empty board to avoid disaster. But yeah, ladder is always aggro happy, so two hysterias make sense.

Deck is hard to pilot as advertised. I'm not sure yet if I like it. TBH, something that's frustrated me before about decks built around gadgetzan auctioneer is that if the auctioneers are the bottom card of your deck you just die. This deck feels a little bit better about it, because you also have pyro+Acolyte of pain, and you can go full northshire. (I once burned six cards on purpose with double northshire circle of healing because I already had Nomi and 2x Seance in my hand). Still though, even with all of that the RNG of drawing vs not drawing Auctioneer is still real.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

metroid composite posted...

Messing around with Chef Nomi Priest in Casual (minus one Lazul's Scheme because I haven't crafted anything for the deck yet).

IDK what the writer was on, cutting a Mass Hysteria. At least, in aggro matchups this makes very little sense; I guess if you are expecting to face mostly warriors due to the tournament setting it's fine. But yeah, run mass hysteria. If you face a control warrior whom you expect to play Saboteur, you can mass hysteria on an empty board to avoid disaster. But yeah, ladder is always aggro happy, so two hysterias make sense.

Deck is hard to pilot as advertised. I'm not sure yet if I like it. TBH, something that's frustrated me before about decks built around gadgetzan auctioneer is that if the auctioneers are the bottom card of your deck you just die. This deck feels a little bit better about it, because you also have pyro+Acolyte of pain, and you can go full northshire. (I once burned six cards on purpose with double northshire circle of healing because I already had Nomi and 2x Seance in my hand). Still though, even with all of that the RNG of drawing vs not drawing Auctioneer is still real.

Doesn't Warrior just board wipe 3 times and not give a shit though?

They only have two board wipes that full clear.

Two Brawls. After that all they have is Warpath, which deals a maximum of 5 damage, and Chef Nomi fills the board with 6/6s. Their only possible out is to play Saboteur and hope to hit a Mass Hysteria in your hand (which is why Mass Hysteria gets sideboarded out for the warrior match, and why I am willing to Mass Hysteria on an empty board against warrior on ladder).
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Relevant;

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/bf58xu/warrior_has_the_perfect_answer_to_trumps_third/
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Oh hey, the entire Q&A was collected in one place and summarized, which is nice cause scrolling through that topic was not the best UI:

https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/6685-rise-of-shadows-developer-q-a-all-answers
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Man, Barnes is not the problem with Big Priest. I mean, it is ONE problem, but changing it will not affect the playability of the deck the way people want. There were Barnesless builds going around a while back. They were still good, if not better.
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I got Swampqueen hagatha in my last pack and now I'm considering crafting Shudderwock and crafting into control Shaman as I have most of the cards for it (ironic since like just a few weeks before I had no shaman cards). I have Archivist AND the bartender girl already too. I'm not really happy with the game state right now which is why I have not really been playing much in the last few days.
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I cut Shudderwock from my Shaman deck. Too often it would just sit there in my hand all game doing nothing for me.
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So...one of the meta reports had a wild Even Shaman that looked too slow to be a wild deck.

Corpsetaker in Wild, with five eight-drops and no way to cheat them out. This decklist: https://twitter.com/oMTYLPUPxNanyxG/status/1119108391241052160

So...I tried it, and yeah, the deck is performing surprisingly well for me. There's a ton of aggro decks that run up against a lifesteal corpsetaker, and are like "what is this healing nonsense? How should I respond?" Some wild aggro players outright don't seem to know how to deal with it. I faced a pirate warrior, who hit corpsetaker with his weapon to take off divine shield, and then...chose not to trade in his Kor'Kron Elite. I...Earthen Mighted the corpsetaker, and healed for 10 lol.

Seems to deal with slower decks decently well as well. Devolve is a good card, particularly against Spreading Plague.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Is there an English decklist?

Sure:

https://hearthstone-decks.net/even-corpsetaker-shaman-5-legend-omtylpupxnanyxg/
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Man, I'm so glad World Championship brawl is back. Really fun playing these unnerfed decks from the past. Still, have not gotten Patron or Undertaker Hunter (which I think are in the pool but have not seen them yet in like 10 games or so).
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KokoroAkechi posted...

Man, I'm so glad World Championship brawl is back. Really fun playing these unnerfed decks from the past. Still, have not gotten Patron or Undertaker Hunter (which I think are in the pool but have not seen them yet in like 10 games or so).

I've gotten undertaker hunter, and have seen a streamer playing against Patron (I believe it's the post-nerf patron, so no Warsong Commander, just a midrange deck that makes patrons).
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The only thing that kind of sucks is because these are tournament decks from different eras a lot of the matchups are so lopsided (due to the ability to ban). Like how is freeze mage supposed to beat armor... i mean jade druid. And how is Raza Priest supposed to be freeze mage.
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I won the first day of HCT. Got a free pack for watching it, opened up a legendary.
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Hmm...pretty sure my account is correctly linked; nothing so far for watching HCT
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The first game here is one of the most cathartic games of Hearthstone I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu9dozYIrw" data-time="
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Can someone explain the point of a ban in conquest format? Like, it's basically saying "hey i know this is a best of 7 but you wanna just skip to game 3 since us each winning with that one deck is a foregone conclusion?" Like, could i choose not to ban a deck and make my opponent win 4 times?

Just watched a video with firebat talking about ban strategies and I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why it even matters.
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The ban is really for lineup purposes. Since in a lot of pro events you know the bracket ahead of time and can do research on your opponents' usual decks and play styles you can tailor a lineup for your group stage. I'd assume most players are like "Make it out of groups and see what happens after that." because of the variance involved.

You have to ban a deck. Iirc in the finals of HCT each player actually adds their final deck to their pool and you have the best of seven. The ban means you can construct lineups that are weak versus a popular deck. Like, let's say that Mechathun Warlock happened to be the most popular deck, you could ban that and only bring control decks. Obviously, if you happened to run into an all mechathun lineup you'd be pretty fucked, but that's something you account for in your research.

The other strategy is to just bring the strognest decks available you are comfortable with and ban your opponent's strongest deck. Last format this would have most likely been hunter. It's also pretty common to see players ban a deck they have not seen just because they don't want to deal with it, but these weird decks don't often seen play at very high end tournaments.

The ban system is also why tournament decks differ so much from ladder decks in terms of the card choices. Being able to elimiate a threat and know that your opponent is probably going to play certain cards allows you to tech your deck much more effectively.

Although, this hardly matters now because specialist has already started and if it works out, should become the defacto format moving forward. Remember, the World Championships are for 2018 so it's still using the old ruleset. That is... unless they do some sort of hyrbid for worlds (which sounds like a disaster. Specialist was made in part to make tournaments shorter)
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I feel like you just have to ban rogue in this format right

Like Warrior is techable since you can just play greedy but Rogue just seems like it can win any matchup right now
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Forgot to mention you can also make a lineup that targets a popular deck. So let's say control warrior is expected to be the most popular. You can make a lineup with decks strong against it and ban like a deck you dont want to face. Since your opponent has to win with all their remaining decks even if you lose the other games as long as the warrior doesn't win you win.
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what is specialist?
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It's the new format starting soon where you only pick one class to make a deck for, but you make three decks with it. Your second and third deck have to share 25/30 cards with your first deck, so it's essentially Hearthstones version of a sideboard.
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I clicked too fast and didn't see the message, does anyone know why I got a Witchwood pack on the Asia server just now? It wasn't from watching the stream and I didn't get it on either of the other two regions.
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I might just throw up the stream when I go to sleep tonight if getting the pack requires no input on my part other than linking my account. I usually fall asleep to Hearthstone anyway.
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Camden posted...

I clicked too fast and didn't see the message, does anyone know why I got a Witchwood pack on the Asia server just now? It wasn't from watching the stream and I didn't get it on either of the other two regions.

Daily reward for HCT, I think.

Via patch notes: https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/22938499/hearthstone-update-april-4-rise-of-shadows

HCT World Championships Its almost time for a new champion of Hearthstone esports to be crowned! Login from April 26 28 for daily rewards and play decks used by previous champions in the HCT Tavern Brawl. Be sure to also check out the HCT World Championship live at www.twitch.tv/playhearthstone

This new animated short reminds me... is Kael'Thas the biggest character in Warcraft yet to be in Hearthstone?
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

This new animated short reminds me... is Kael'Thas the biggest character in Warcraft yet to be in Hearthstone?

yes, in fact, almost all real major characters have been in the game. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Kael, Azshara, Durotar, Kiljaeden, Sargeras, Archimonde, Varimarthas, Magtheridon, Chen, maybe some others. Saying some of these are "major" is a stretch.
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Li-Li too.

I've been expecting a panda themed expansion with the Sha, but who knows.when that will happen.
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I would like a Li-Li card, she was one of my most played heroes in Heroes of the Storm (mostly cause I liked her voice lines).

I also...honestly feel like they could draw from other Blizzard franchises. They did a Starcraft crossover once, but didn't actually put any Starcraft cards in, it was just a tavern brawl with portals or something. That was disappointing

Hmm...so finally got a pack for watching. My pick of Muzzy is looking a little shaky right now with him on 0-1, though.
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Khadgar and The Beast do not go well together.
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KokoroAkechi posted...

The ban is really for lineup purposes. Since in a lot of pro events you know the bracket ahead of time and can do research on your opponents' usual decks and play styles you can tailor a lineup for your group stage. I'd assume most players are like "Make it out of groups and see what happens after that." because of the variance involved.

You have to ban a deck. Iirc in the finals of HCT each player actually adds their final deck to their pool and you have the best of seven. The ban means you can construct lineups that are weak versus a popular deck. Like, let's say that Mechathun Warlock happened to be the most popular deck, you could ban that and only bring control decks. Obviously, if you happened to run into an all mechathun lineup you'd be pretty fucked, but that's something you account for in your research.

The other strategy is to just bring the strognest decks available you are comfortable with and ban your opponent's strongest deck. Last format this would have most likely been hunter. It's also pretty common to see players ban a deck they have not seen just because they don't want to deal with it, but these weird decks don't often seen play at very high end tournaments.

The ban system is also why tournament decks differ so much from ladder decks in terms of the card choices. Being able to elimiate a threat and know that your opponent is probably going to play certain cards allows you to tech your deck much more effectively.

But if it's conquest rather than last hero standing, why the hell do I care about banning at all? How does banning a deck add any strategy beyond "you can't play the #1 best deck now, so you'll have to play the #4 best deck instead"?
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If you only watch one match from the World Championship, it has to be Muzzy/Languagehacker game 1. It is over an hour long, and peak Hearthstone.
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That game was ridiculous.
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Brian Kibler was the right person to cast that game.
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OK, I'm confused; I got a pack for watching yesterday, but I turned the stream on at 6pm today and have had it on till now (6am). No packs (other than the boomsday pack for logging in, but I know you don't need to watch for this one). How does this work again?
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I haven't watched shit but I still keep getting packs, so *shrugs*
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metroid composite posted...

OK, I'm confused; I got a pack for watching yesterday, but I turned the stream on at 6pm today and have had it on till now (6am). No packs (other than the boomsday pack for logging in, but I know you don't need to watch for this one). How does this work again?

You get 1 Rise of Shadows pack for passing 4 cumulative hours of viewing time across all 4 days. Also, every hour, 1500 random people who are currently watching win a classic pack.

NewerShadow posted...

metroid composite posted...

OK, I'm confused; I got a pack for watching yesterday, but I turned the stream on at 6pm today and have had it on till now (6am). No packs (other than the boomsday pack for logging in, but I know you don't need to watch for this one). How does this work again?

You get 1 Rise of Shadows pack for passing 4 cumulative hours of viewing time across all 4 days. Also, every hour, 1500 random people who are currently watching win a classic pack.

I just logged on and got both of these things!
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azuarc posted...

KokoroAkechi posted...

The ban is really for lineup purposes. Since in a lot of pro events you know the bracket ahead of time and can do research on your opponents' usual decks and play styles you can tailor a lineup for your group stage. I'd assume most players are like "Make it out of groups and see what happens after that." because of the variance involved.

You have to ban a deck. Iirc in the finals of HCT each player actually adds their final deck to their pool and you have the best of seven. The ban means you can construct lineups that are weak versus a popular deck. Like, let's say that Mechathun Warlock happened to be the most popular deck, you could ban that and only bring control decks. Obviously, if you happened to run into an all mechathun lineup you'd be pretty fucked, but that's something you account for in your research.

The other strategy is to just bring the strognest decks available you are comfortable with and ban your opponent's strongest deck. Last format this would have most likely been hunter. It's also pretty common to see players ban a deck they have not seen just because they don't want to deal with it, but these weird decks don't often seen play at very high end tournaments.

The ban system is also why tournament decks differ so much from ladder decks in terms of the card choices. Being able to elimiate a threat and know that your opponent is probably going to play certain cards allows you to tech your deck much more effectively.

But if it's conquest rather than last hero standing, why the hell do I care about banning at all? How does banning a deck add any strategy beyond "you can't play the #1 best deck now, so you'll have to play the #4 best deck instead"?

Because you dont always ban the best deck. Although, in a lot of cases this does happen. A lot of times there are 2 or 3 decks that you think are going to perform very well a tournament and you can ban one of those and have your decks made in ways that are bad against that one deck but have better matchups versus one of the remaining ones. For example, I believe last year I think Cubelock was the most popular ban, despite the general consensus that Raza Priest or Tempo Rogue being the best deck in the game due to how lineups and decks were constructed.
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