Board 8 > Hearthstone Topic - Buffs, Nerfs, and Quilboars! Oh My!

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know it's all in my head but nothing tilts me more than when you switch decks to counter the meta and then you only start running into decks that counter your new deck.

So then you switch back and immediately start getting the decks you were trying to counter.

---

skullbone posted...

I know it's all in my head but nothing tilts me more than when you switch decks to counter the meta and then you only start running into decks that counter your new deck.

So then you switch back and immediately start getting the decks you were trying to counter.

You mean there are times that doesn't happen?

---

Guys I can't get out of Diamond 9 and I'm going absolutely insane. If ANYONE has managed this month can you please tell me the decks you used.

---

If you want to win you play Paladin. That's your only choice really.

---

I've basically avoided Paladin this expansion unless I'm playing a weird list but I think you're right.

---

skullbone posted...

Guys I can't get out of Diamond 9 and I'm going absolutely insane. If ANYONE has managed this month can you please tell me the decks you used.

Odd Paladin in Wild. Wasn't doing too good until I switched to the newest VS list which required crafting Conviction (not because it's super strong, but because there aren't that many other odd-costed Holy spells to draw with Knight of Anointment. In odd-cost decks you can't run Hand of A'Dal, which is the really good holy spell. The deck actually runs Blessing of Authority just to get the holy spell count up).

Experimented with swapping out cards for Divine Favour (the deck doesn't run it) but Divine Favour gets drawn by Knight of Anointment, and Knight of Anointment gets drawn by Crystology, so often when I did Crystology into Knight of Anointment I had trouble emptying my hand for Divine Favour.

Part of this is just comfort level with the deck, though--I tried handbuff paladin which is theoretically a much stronger deck, and lost several games with it. Odd Paladin...I like to outvalue people, value trade and rarely going face, and in Odd Paladin frequently that is the optimal play. I'm not sure what the right line is with the new wild handbuff paladin, I've played paladin decks with handbuff strategies before, but I feel like this one must play different from those.

---

I started playing too late and took too many breaks to actually invest in Wild. I basically dust all of the cards that aren't in standard.

---

skullbone posted...

I've basically avoided Paladin this expansion unless I'm playing a weird list but I think you're right.

Then play one of Gibberling Druid/Face Hunter/Rush Warrior

---

I just won a game because someone used Silas and rotated the wrong way, and instantly conceded after.

New First Day of School has a 71% mulligan winrate. Literally a buff.

---

Decided to play some Control Priest and I just lost to a CONTROL DEMON HUNTER running N'Zoth, C'Thun, and Kargal.

So I pick one of the greedier decks and lose to quite possibly the greediest deck I've ever seen.

---

Okay after another 4 hour day I'm back to Diamond 9, 0 stars.

I think I'm officially on "only do my quests every 3 days" with this expansion until the mini-set drops. I just can't make any progress no matter what I play.

---

metroid composite posted...

Well, based on the data we're getting in so far, seems like part of the problem is that the first day of school nerf might not have made the card weaker?

Still included in 95% of paladin decks.

Hard to get drawn winrates isolated from the old FDoS on HSReplay, but we can get played winrates post patch. Now, yes, played winrates are a dangerous metric, cause they overvalue finisher cards like Alextraza and sometimes rarely played cards get overvalued cause they were played in one variant of a deck that had higher winrates than other decks. For example, Shadow Hunter Vol'jin is in the top 5 played winrate Paladin cards, but...that's from playing it in a goofy combo deck when things go right, and it's only in 7% of Paladin decks. But none of these caveats apply to First Day; it's not a finisher and it's played in every paladin deck. And despite all that it's still top 10 post-nerf for played winrates among paladin.

So...yeah, First Day might not actually be weaker. (Which means it's probably actually stronger in more midrange decks like Libram Paladin). Combine that with Crabrider not being in every Paladin deck pre-nerf (and not actually getting nerfed that hard so a lot of people still run it) and yeah...Paladin's sayed pretty constant.

I didn't read this yet, but wanted to respond

I think it's weaker against faster matchups (Hunter, Druid) where you generally want to play a 1 on 1 to get the board against them, but against slower matchups it's still... pretty good, since you use it as a refuel instead of a tempo card. Libram Pally also has Hope which kinda solos those aggro matchups.

It's like how Twin Slice had DH go from Tempo to Aggro. Pally seems to be going more value based, starting to see some N'Zoth builds pop up too with Gryphon and the Elemental 6/6, Murgur/Redscale, the Dragon Cairne etc.

---

Looking at the card list for Barrens, I think there's 16 cards I've never seen a single time this entire expansion. I believe I've seen all of the Paladin and Warrior cards, but at least one from every other class falls into that list.

---

For the third time since achievements have been added to the game I've got a ten game win streak in ranked, just can't seem to finish that achievement to get twelve. Token Druid, OTK DH, Control Warlock and C'thun Anything are really bad matches but I feel good about pretty much everything else.

---

What deck are you playing?

---

11-0, first time seeing Celestial Druid since the first couple days of the expansion.

skullbone posted...

What deck are you playing?

N'zoth Priest.

I wouldn't suggest laddering with it unless you can go 15-1 and still be just Silver 6 because you blew all your bonus stars chasing achievements, as it probably gets stomped in the ranks that matter. Hell, the only upside to blowing all of those ranked stars is I think my opponents have finally hit a point where only 50% of them are playing meta decks, which has made playing the game a lot more fun even if I'm never climbing anywhere ever again.

---

Yeah I'm not sure that deck would work in the diamond ranks but nice to know it's working for you!

I finally managed to get from Diamond 9 to Diamond 5 by playing token Druid. Sometimes you win on turn 3 and other times you beat a control priest by summoning 7 glowflys and then playing soul of the forest on turn 10. It's virtually impossible for them to clear 2 boards and then you buff your flies/treants into 7/5s.

So it's an aggro deck that can also manage to create an almost unstoppable combo if the game goes long.

---

Even after the quillboar nerfs battlegrounds still suck

If you go quillboars you either completely highroll it and start doing like 10 to 20 in the mid game or you whiff completely and you die. If something is good against an end game Chara or Angam build it's based on what else is in the lobby, because if murlocs and/or elementals are not there it's just a lot harder to compete. Simply because huge mid game damage threshold is there mixed with still very good late game scaling even after the nerfs if players want to win they have to push up levels at the risk of being instantly killed by the guy who high rolled mid game quillboars or just never get 1st in any BG they play. This means at equal skill levels the entire thing is basically luck in who you face.

I want to make it clear i know this dynamic has existed before quillboars. but since they were introduced builds that want to make a 1st have even less room for error or bad rng compared to before

Nice, 12 ranked wins in a row. I'm going to put those 50 achievement points to good use!

---

What's considered a high battlegrounds score?
---

This was from before the last MMR reset:

https://twitter.com/IksarHS/status/1371263095432040450

---

Lol literally over 9000 they did that on purpose
---

I quit playing battlegrounds for TFT after that quillboars patch, I'm enjoying that a lot more now

---

I just had a game where a warlock used tikatus 3 times against me and lost.

That's happened to me as well. Too busy using Felosophy and Tickatus instead of actually dealing with the cards I've already played and have in my hand.

---

Just had a control shaman play 3 Kargath prime against me because of southsea scoundrel. I kinda wonder why that card isn't played more often.

---

giving your opponent access to (one of) their best card(s) from their deck is a lil risky

---

It sees play in Priest, mainly cause of NZoth and to fight Warlocks but its too slow for other classes to take advantage of

---

Camden posted...

That's happened to me as well. Too busy using Felosophy and Tickatus instead of actually dealing with the cards I've already played and have in my hand.

I won because fdas gave me reliquary and I drew the prime before he milled me. He actually killed my entire deck but had no hard removal or comeback potential because a oh my yogg turned one of his spells into altar of fire and milled juraxus and he had burned all his non targeting removal.

Why aren't more people complaining about Font of Power. Whenever I face spell mage I don't lose because of their spells I lose because of the value of the minions generated from that spell.

Honestly Font probably isnt even the third best 1 mana spell in Spell Mage


---

Yeah I've seen people cut font entirely

---

im pretty sure font has like the highest kept win rate after incanters flow

I mean you generally keep it because its a turn 1 play but I was just saying Mages tempo and burn tools, especially after Flow, are what make Spell Mage good right now, not the value from Font. Theres just better cards in the deck (and Spell Mage did get considerably weaker after the Spring water nerf)

Magni is in the shop btw, went and got him right away.

---

i still think its too strong. I disagree there are better cards in the deck, yes there are cards that push its win condition more but things like dropping a phoenix into burn or lab partner + draw, or getting like solaria etc often provides the extra reach or resources for the deck. The mage minion pool is just really good for the deck right now.

oh heck yeah, blackrock mountain brawl. This brings back tons of memories, this is like my favorite brawl they've ever done, played it a ton back in the day
---

The best brawl is World Championship brawl

KokoroAkechi posted...

i still think its too strong. I disagree there are better cards in the deck, yes there are cards that push its win condition more but things like dropping a phoenix into burn or lab partner + draw, or getting like solaria etc often provides the extra reach or resources for the deck. The mage minion pool is just really good for the deck right now.

So it and Apexis Blast are reasons to run it, but occasionally you lowroll with Font and get like, the centaur and Mordresh.

The strongest card is clearly Flow, since it makes your deck cheaper to the point where your 1 mana spells cost 0, Blast is a 5 mana Firelands Portal, which was pretty strong when it was in standard and even stronger with the 5 mana pool being better overall now. Mask is a 7 mana Pyroblast on a empty board, Brain Freeze and Devolving Missiles are just nuts. Spring water is still pretty good. Primordial Studies is more consistent and gets those spell damage minions for a net 0 mana cost without even factoring in flow.

Those are all cards I would consider better than Font. Runed Orb is kinda close

---

Hit legend today

If you guys want to play an OP deck try the Nzoth Secret Pally VS put out. It felt really good, I was thinking of cutting Kazakus for Samuro but Kazakus and divine shield 5 mana and broom came up clutch in the last game so idk

---

The first card of the miniset is a 7 mana 4/4 Murlocvthat eats a minion in the opponents hand and gets their stats

So a Alex/Tickatus tech

---

Priest finally gets some draw and I'm not sure it's even worth running.

---

Camden posted...

Priest finally gets some draw and I'm not sure it's even worth running.

If they add more holy spells it could be down the road, but most of the good cards in Priest are Shadow.

The Shaman one looks awesome though

---

LiquidOshawott posted...

The first card of the miniset is a 7 mana 4/4 Murlocvthat eats a minion in the opponents hand and gets their stats

So a Alex/Tickatus tech

I love this card, cause it's so good at fixing the problems with dirty rat.

Dirty rat was fine as a tech card against combo. But when it was played against aggro and it pulled out a fire fly or the like, it was basically an instant win (2 mana 2/5 taunt that makes your opponent discard a card--aggro couldn't beat that). And when it was played against aggro and it pulled out an 8/8 it was an instant loss. It wasn't "correct" to play it on 2 vs aggro, but people at my MMR did all the time, and it was the biggest coinflip nonsense.

This card has a job--it takes out combo pieces; Alex, Tickatus, Y'sharrj, Lady Liadrin. And it does those really well (when it lands it's also a 7 mana 12/12 or 14/14 in addition to disrupting their wincon). But it comes too late to be a crazy tempo swing. By turn 7, decks can kill or freeze or stall with taunts a 12/12. The RNG will come from whether you hit their win condition, but midrange decks with no one singular win condition won't feel huge RNG swings from this card.

---

Aggro decks will probably be the ones that are whatever about the card. Midrange decks could definitely feel something if it messes up their curve. Eating a Troublemaker for a rush Warrior or a Inquisitor for Demon Hunter or a NZoth in Paladin is huge. It could also just lead to keeping smaller minions in hand to not get your big minions get eaten.

Lifesteal Demon Hunter is probably the one that would be most affected if this is meta though, just because every minion is important in that deck

---

LiquidOshawott posted...

Midrange decks could definitely feel something if it messes up their curve. Eating a Troublemaker for a rush Warrior or a Inquisitor for Demon Hunter or a NZoth in Paladin is huge.

Oh sure, they'll feel something. It's not a dead card in those matchups (which is good design). But it's also not crazy high variance--if the card it discards against a midrange deck decides the match, then you had a pretty close match for the first 7 turns.

---

I'd be happier about this if my opponent actually wanted to play a speedy game. I'm pretty sure they were just running it so they could play a 7/8/8 and wasn't expecting the effect to go off since they didn't play a single card until turn seven and missed multiple hero powers along the way.

---

Yes, and if the card sucked, nobody would run it. But your opponent has a severe punish for running the card if you have it in your deck, too.

Not that I'm sure why you'd run it just to run it. It's just a slightly improved war golem.

---

Had an epic game of BG last night where my opponent and I were both running taunt demons/yshaarj and we both lasted probably 10 turns past everyone else just trading wins/drawing with each other. I was secret boi and proc'd ice block and managed to eke out the win because i had a golden gold grubber gaining +20 every turn, which eventually outmuscled his wrath weaver.
---

azuarc posted...

Yes, and if the card sucked, nobody would run it. But your opponent has a severe punish for running the card if you have it in your deck, too.

Not that I'm sure why you'd run it just to run it. It's just a slightly improved war golem.

For me, it was a dragon and I needed to play 12 of them, hopefully within the frame of the three games I also needed to play as Druid.

For my opponent, I guess ooh big shiny.

Honestly, if Nozdormu was active in every game it would benefit me tremendously. I play as fast as possible pretty much 100% of the time, so all of the mistakes one occasionally makes from not paying enough attention I'm already making under regular time. Would just drag my opponents down to my level.

---