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

(+) Yeah! (+)

I really think its gonna be Handbuff Pally, particularly ones with Robes of Protection, which is just impossible for the solitaire and control decks to really deal with. And you have all sticky divine shield and rush cards and plenty of decent refill tools to keep going. The battlegrounds battle master card also seems nutty, imagine conviction and battlemaster.

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I actually havent played the deck, but I think the best version right now seems something like this aggroish one I saw in a tweet, once combo starts to die down maybe the midrange version becomes better but the meta is super fast so like, Varian and Bolvar seem silly.

https://twitter.com/languagehacker_/status/1423368733154844673

I played some Quest Hunter btw, deck is eh but its pretty fun.

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They were already talking about balance changes

Ones to think of

Flow
Jewel Kit
The Warlock Rod
Barrens Battlemaster
Garrote
Ilgynoth maybe but I dunno how oppressive Lifesteal DH is

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Yeah they said they had 1 card in mind specifically and I'll be shocked if it's not flow.

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My favorite thing about this expansion so far is that if you ever leave 2 minions alive on the board you take 30 damage the next turn.

Battleground Battlemaster is fun design

/s

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I think my favorite thing is that Priest is now an aggro class

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Everything is an aggro class now.

Control is non-existent.

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My Anacondra Druid feat Dame Hazelbark is basically a control deck in matchups to everything now, weird feeling

But at the same time the classes at least all have something good

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Hell yeah I hit legend

I played Anacondra Druid for most of it but after getting completely gut punched by that new Zoo Warlock thing (Stealer and Darkglare combined is like, evil) I decided to just try Rush Warrior to punch my ticket to legend. Seems like this aggro meta actually is pretty good for it

The list is basically the same as the older ones except I cut crabrider for Harbor Scamp because Sword Eater is arguably the best card Warrior has and drawing it is good

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Yeah they do, mainly cause you dont have a reliable answer to stealer of souls (the zoo version is the popular list right now)

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The level of pettiness needed to create a deck like this is so fucking relatable. Go get 'em Dane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjxXPXmjGXs

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Hit my limit today with this expansion and I'm just going to play Quest Mage until it's nerfed at this point. I've tried about 10 different decks and the only thing that felt even a little good was OTK DH.

When I try aggro I lose to Paladins with 16/16 divine shield taunts on turn 7 or my board gets frozen/cleared by Mage/Warlock until they finish their combo and demolish you.

Control doesn't exist so the only other option is to play OTK/combo decks and hope you're faster than your opponent.

As I'm typing this I played a game as quest mage against aggro Shaman. He drew pretty well and I literally froze all of his damage dealing minions every turn until I cleared them with AOE and fire. I played Dawngrasp on 7 mana and I had 33 health left.

I know people are having success with aggro and other stuff but good lord this game just feels MISERABLE right now if you're not playing this deck. But now I suspect I'll run into mage counters and tilt myself into oblivion so let's see how it goes I guess.

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More whining:

People are upset that mage can do 25+ damage from hand after completing their quest.

If Paladin manages to stick two 1/1s on the board (pretty easy with divine shield) then on turn 7 they can do 28 damage with battlemaster and two convictions without a quest.

The devs say that they don't know how to make 10 mana cards anymore because they need to basically win the game at that mana cost. I'm not saying this card should be 10 mana but honestly I think it would still see play at 7 mana. Maybe even 8 mana!

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It's just ridiculous that you have to clear EVERY enemy against paladin or else you're going to potentially take 20+ damage the next turn. It's like shaman going wide every single turn for the whole game back when bloodlust existed and then eventually they drop 12/12 divine shields too.

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Honestly enough decks probably have ways to exploit battlemaster and not just Pally

Deathrattle Demon Hunter has sticky minions
Quest Rogue has the stealth thing to give to your scabbs or you can just put it in front of your old stealth stuff
Shaman has some beefy elementals and you can use rockbiter on not doomhammer
Warlock has cheap giants
Im sure the Oracle of Elune Druid can run it
Hunter doesnt need to because its minions are mostly tokens but hey Im sure you can adjust to it as the finisher in a way


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Quest Mage is by far and away the most frustrating deck to play against. There's no interaction; your best move against them is to never play any minions so you can try and stall their frost spells. It's ridiculous.

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I've mostly been playing an aggro paladin with anti-mage tech. It's mostly done well since so many decks in the meta are spell-heavy. One deck it really struggles with is aggro shadow priest, but it's not unwinnable. I also got really wrecked by a quest warrior that surprised me by being control.

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Honestly the better counters are shadow priest doomhammer shaman and dame Hazelbark anacondra druid

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Just hit legend with VS Doomhammer Elemental Shaman

https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/decks/doom-elemental-shaman/

Literally 11-0 from Diamond 3 to Legend

My last game was against a mage and I hit him for 22 damage on turn 8 with 3 rockbiter weapons. Felt pretty satisfying to completely dumpster that deck


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I played a little bit of shadow priest, that deck is actually worth the hype, its a strangely fun aggro deck and you have a lot of ways to draw your raise deads and 4 mana deal 4 burst

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I was playing a variant of elemental doomhammer shaman last set. Very different list, though.

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I like how the Paladin meta has shifted to running stealth cards + Battlemaster/Conviction

thats how you know the combo is busted

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As expected, the meta has refined its degeneracy. Same with Warlock and turn 3 flesh giants that even if you kill just get raise deaded.

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The thing with warlock is Im not even sure if nerfing Darkglare fixes the class, because the hand soul rend version seems strong too (but that one also runs battlemaster so a blanket nerf will fix that)

Like maybe the answer could be nerfing raise dead

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Nerfing dual class cards is tough because you fuck over another class that had nothing to do with it. And priest already sucks.

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Well, Shadow Priest doesnt suck and it runs a two mana card that literally is just to tutor for raise dead!

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Heh, might be able to maintain an ok legend rank now, at the 500s

Played some of our favorite decks: Doomhammer Shaman and Quest Mage, becoming a master of getting Doomhammer on 5 and Flow on 2 (And Dawngrasp around turn 6)

Lifesteal Demon Hunter is pretty annoying though

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Alright after playing a little more Im waiting until they nerf Ilgynoth or Moarg

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Swap Rhino for both MoArg and Ilgynoth and thats probably my list

Like the biggest thing with LSDH right now is that you can felosophy your discounted moargs extremely easily now and combo so fast. Its like Quest Rogue and Patron Warrior levels of silly in terms of combo potential

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Actually I can see an argument for Forgeborn over Doomhammer and something from Paladin over one of the LSDH cards if they think one nerf is enough


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https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/23708686/21-0-3-patch-notes

so with the slight battlemaster nerf they had to nerf conviction, but thats a heavy one

Also the Deryl buff is crazy given a year ago he was among the best heroes

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That flurgl change seems pretty cuckoo to me. Super easy triples in the early game and now you can actually play good minions early and still transition to murlocs later.

I like all of the nerfs but it kinda feels like instead of dying on turn 6 you're going to die on turn 8 now. Sure that's two more turns but is it really going to make a huge difference?

They obliterated OTK DH though with a 2 mana nerf on Illy. I think if these questlines were a year old they'd be getting obliterated too instead of slight nerfs on mostly old cards.

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Interesting changes.

Standard:

• Incanter's was obvious.
• Il'Gynoth is now 6, which means less combo BS. But harder to remove now.
• Darkglare is basically the same nerf.
• Battlemaster didn't get the bonus stat treatment, but they could have taken it to 7 and it would still be played.
• Kolkar gets the Darkglare treatment. Don't know if that was needed or not. Pack Runner never bothered me.
• Granite Forgeborn is a surprise. Was it that oppressive?
• I'm disappointed but not surprised at Conviction. It was pay 1 deal 6. (Perhaps 9.)
• Flesh Giant feels like a baby nerf at best, given how much warlock plays with their health.

Battlegrounds:

• WTF is this Shudderwock change? Like, seriously? Dear god that has the potential to be broken. Especially if you get Brann. But just imagine you have a mediocre murloc build and then bam, you triple up on all the buffs you've played this game. Or you triple up on a ton of mug and cups and bloodgems and whatever else. Alternatively, you could just get a couple 1/1 tokens at the start of the game. It's possible Shudderwock might not be good, but I'm betting money this is going to be really freaking strong.
• Daryl - about time. 2/2 was simply not enough since elementals and quillboars entered the game.
• Flurgl - uh, excuse me? Like, really? Just spam the board with murlocs? That's insane. Flurgl will just put together whatever murloc hand they want now. They don't even need to get a good start because eventually they'll cycle out their one-drops for murlocs.
• Maiev - Extra stats on the dormant minion will not fix Maiev. The issue is that 3 turns is simply too freaking long to wait. Everyone's already moved on from that tavern tier by then and it still occupies too much of the board in the late game.
• Malygos - interesting change. We haven't seen a twice-per-turn hero power before, although I guess the stat swap is kinda like twice per turn. Still, I think having two shots at a swap like this might actually make Malygos playable.

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Wow, that's a lot of balance changes at the same time. Interesting when Visious Syndicate was basically calling for no nerfs.

Incanters flow: yeah, about damn time. It's wild growth, it should cost the same as wild growth.

Ill'gynoth: Dunno how much this changes TBH, I've taken 72 damage plenty of times, and sure, the added mana probably drops that to 36. Guess the deck dies to control warrior gaining 8 armour though?

Darkglare: *happy wild noises*

Battlegrounds Battlemaster: A little surprising; paging through all the decks that use it, it's pretty much just paladin decks. Guess it is good enough in paladin to deserve a nerf?

Kolkar Pack Runner: Uh? That's a weird choice. Like...drawn winrate in hunter decks tends to be right around the middle of those decks. Definitely not on the weak side, not close to cutting it, but not on the strong side either.

Granite Forgeborn: Hm. Well looking at HSReplay, it is #1 on all three of drawn winrate and mulligan winrate and played winrate in the deck that runs it, so I totally see why they targeted this card. I guess this is a little like when they nerfed ancharr when pirate warrior wasn't even good. The weird thing is how few shaman decks are actually running it. It's in 30% of Shaman decks right now.

Conviction: Deserved. I mean, possibly RIP Odd Paladin in wild, and I'm a little sad about that. But then again maybe not cause darkglare got two cards nerfed, and I felt like darkglare preys on odd paladin, so that's nice.

Flesh Giant: Big ol middle finger to specifically Even Warlock in wild. For all the other warlock decks, changes the cost from 0 to 0, but...maybe slows down their big turn by one turn.

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That was certainly a turn 10. Getting the dunk tanks corrupted off of prep was also pretty hilarious.

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Battlemaster sees play because it and conviction wins every game in Paladin, but Quest Rogue and Handlock both use it rather effectively (former uses it for stealthed scabbs, latter uses it when it is able to stick a giant).

They wanted to target Hunter as its been among the strongest decks for the last meta and this one (and it has the highest win rate right now I believe) and Kolkar is a snowball card somewhat akin to Gibberling but on a slightly weaker scale. I think its the only card in Hunter that made sense to nerf.

The reason why Forgeborn lists are populated as such is because people are still running lists that are exactly the same as Barrens lists even though its like, infinitely better than Earth Revenant. You can Kindling Elemental into it and discount your whole deck and give your hand the kindling effect early. Card is really good from what I played, and this targets both the Doomhammer shaman and the more midrange shaman

Feels like they just wanted to target certain aggro and combo decks to slow down the meta a little bit and see if new strategies develop or old ones they pushed come back. They probably didnt hit Flesh Giant that hard because they want to see if Warlock isnt overpowered after being so weak last expansion

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Warlock is still awful to play against. This patch did nothing to change that.

And apparently the ladder is still nothing but mage and warlock. I'm so glad they nerfed my paladin deck that could tech against them.

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