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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just played one of the most ridiculous battlegrounds sequences I've ever seen. I'm playing as the cat, so obviously some explosive potential is there, but this was insane.

Turn 8, 10 health, I'm limping along on a 2 macaw + spawn set-up with a taunt and a couple okay-ish minions. I'm expecting to die, but instead I defeat my opponent, who has a golden spawn. I figure I'll just upgrade it.

Two other opponents die this turn. I take the spawn from my opponent, a golden glyph guardian from the second, and a golden hyena from the third. I level to 5, play the spawn, and get offered two choices I didn't care for and a Goldrinn. I've got 2 macaws, so sure, Goldrinn. I play the second, joking to myself making I'll get running Goldrinns and get offered a second. I take it, but figure there's no way I'll get the third and I probably just screwed myself. Instead, I get offered a third freaking Goldrinn.

So I play my golden Goldrinn, grab something random, and sell off as much as I can to look for another beast. I find a Mama Bear. So board is now Macaw, Macaw, golden Goldrinn, random dude, Mama Bear, golden Hyena, reborn taunt. My stats get buffs to +20 and my opponent can't handle the board. We go from 5 players to 4. Except this opponent had a Baron.

So obviously I take the baron. And then I pick up second mama and a Defender of Argus. I taunt the two mamas, and I've got bird, bird, wolf, baron, hyena, mama, mama. I knock my opponent out. Pick up random junk. Down to 3.

This turn, I'm offered a hydra and a third macaw. Triple macaw into Maexxna. Play the hydra. Have a faceless in hand, so I hold the maexxna a turn. Instant +40/40 to my board when the macaw attacks. My opponent isn't even close to competing. Down to 2.

Wish I could say I also tripled the baron for the ultimate board, but I just rolled 11 times, played the Maexxna, and wiped the last guy, who was also beasts but was relying on one big hydra. Still, it was an obscene board out of nowhere. I've seen Bigglesworth snowball, but usually with some kind of menagerie comp. The fact that I just hit running golden minions that gave a series of relevant rewards into a baron was utterly absurd.

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Quest Shaman seems fine, just need more draw really

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I dont think that statements true! (Mage is the best and thats why its still around despite flow nerfs and dying to aggro)

but what it does well is stonewall aggro decks

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Just had a battlegrounds game with Brann Murlocs and I did not see a single poison murloc in 12 turns. I had 5 or 6 primalfins, 2 Hamuuls, and tons of spins. It feels almost impossible/bugged to not see that card once with as many chances as I had but that's RNG I guess.

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Two more warlock nerfs 8/31

But what are they? Guesses are Stealer upping the mana cost and maybe removing the lifesteal from the quest

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Stealer of Souls: the first card you draw this turn costs health instead of mana
Backfire to 4 mana

Okay maybe not the backfire nerf but IDK what else they nerf. Maybe the weapon gets nerfed?

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Kinda bored with the meta so I'm trying weird decks like Lady Prestor Warrior and it really brings out what I hate about Hearthstone and card games in general. I can't speak for everyone obviously but I think if you're not playing meta decks you're just not going to have any fun. You can sit and make silly decks all day but you're going to lose every game if you ever try to actually play with them.

If I'm playing Street Fighter I can go into ranked matches with any character and have fun and win matches because of my ability. But in Hearthstone I feel like matches are 90% decided by your deck and 10% by how you actually pilot that deck.

Even in other games like Runeterra I can feel like I'm actually making choices in a game and I can recognize misplays but with Hearthstone you just have to hope you draw the cards you need when you need them. The entire strategy in Hearthstone is resource management but lately it's more about quantity than quality of resources.

At the end of the day what do I really enjoy about playing this game? It's not deckbuilding, it's not a test of skill like Street Fighter, it's not a game of wits, so what is it? Sometimes it feels like a coinflip simulator with more steps which is also why I quit solo queue Dota 2.

I'm not exactly saying anything new here and this is basically just a late night ramble but I'm starting to feel the same things I felt the last time I quit Hearthstone. Has anyone else quit Hearthstone and come back or had thoughts of quitting?

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There's a reason I'm playing mostly battlegrounds these days.

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https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/23714527/battlegrounds-revamp-coming-tomorrow

Wow Battlegrounds is gonna be like, a completely different game

Too many changes to list

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Avenge is a very interesting keyword and I'm excited to see where it goes.

Very notable cards being removed:

Toxfin - no more poison murlocs unless you get the new avenge one!

Tormented Ritualist
Qiraji Harbiner - No more scam taunt builds in the early game!

Faceless Taverngoer - No more easy triples with this fella :-(

Pack Leader - early beast builds need to rely on avenge for tokens instead of big attack buffs?

Junkbot
Waxrider Togwaggle - Something about losing to these cards in the early/mid game always felt lame because you knew the guy was going to fall off hard in like 3 turns

Tide Razor - no more getting highrolled by boat and taking 25 damage!

ALSO Holy Mecherel made me actually laugh out loud that they printed this card again and the pun name. No poisonous is weaker but new divine shield buffs make it interesting.

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• Damage cap of 15 damage has been added until the first player dies. Please note that the damage cap does not check for player deaths until the start of each Recruit Phase, meaning if someone concedes, disconnects, or dies during the Recruit Phase (Is Wrath Weaver ever really on your team?), the damage cap will still be present for that combat.

Theres this too

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Damage cap is pretty cool but my gut feeling is that it's not enough yet. We'll see though!

Also one of the devs on twitter confirmed that Avenge can trigger multiple times. Hopefully the animation is quick because it's going to be triggering a lot.

Also with that confirmed this new card is actually nuts:

Tier 3
Bird Buddy
Avenge (1): Give your Beasts +1/+1

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Geezus that's a massive change. Why does this have to be the same day as a major Genshin update?

And yes, Bird Buddy looks absurd. So do a few other new cards.

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Okay, quick review.

Biggest removals:
Murloc Tidecaller
Toxfin
Faceless Taverngoer
Mythrax the Unraveler

Most of the rest that's going away is kinda whatever. I'll miss some of these cards, but most just ended up being filler that you didn't want in your tavern anyway.

New heroes:

Nguyen looks potentially fun, but also headache-inducing as you try to make a major decision every single turn alongside everything else you're doing. I think it has high-roll potential and a considerable skill gap, but my hunch is that it will ultimately be middle of the pack.

Cariel Roame looks pretty meh. Pay 1 for +1/+1 is usually not worth the cost early on. Later, it's like getting an Aggem/Charlga to the board for 1. The beauty of those other effects is that they're passive, and in Aggem's case, potentially very repeatable. While yes, once upon a time, we had...Bolvar? Uther?...some paladin that buffed neutrals +1/+1 and was decent, but I think that hero in a current meta even with the same support minions would perform terribly. My prediction is that Cariel is low tier 3.

Beasts:

Leapfrogger looks fun as a strong tier 2 if you have beasts. Sewer Rat is 5/5 in stats out the gate. Both of these are ridiculous by old standards.

Bird Buddy is obscene. Suppose you lead with a Sewer Rat, it dies, and then your opponent kills the turtle that results. Rest of your beasts get +2/+2. Other deathrattles, other taunts, etc are just going to rev this up even higher. I expect this card will be stupidly powerful out of the gate and has to be nerfed to Avenge (2).

Reanimating Rattler is also ridiculous, especially on a deathrattle beast like...Palescale Crocolisk, which is a guaranteed +6/+6 and maybe more (unless you have exactly 1 other beast, which dies first.) Give it reborn, though, and this can be a holdover until you can find Goldrinn. More importantly, it means non-Goldrinn builds aren't beholden to buff-on-play effects.

Demons:

Impulsive Trickster is whatever, but Icky Imp is potentially ridiculous. I see this as a good alternative to tokens on tier 1 because it's 3 packets of damage and later 3 demons to die or for effects like the infernal that grows on summoned demons.

Impatient Doomsayer is considerable generation potential if you're looking to spam-cycle demons for Wrath Weavers, which is safer now that Mal'Ganis has basically become a tier 4 minion.

The two eat-for-stats effects are hilarious, and Famished Felbat is going to be incredible free scaling. Even if we assume an average tavern minion at tier 6 is going to only be 3/3, that's still over 20/20 in stats per turn. If you're also cycling for an Insatiable Ur'zul, demons can have some legit growth potential. (Sidenote: you want to run one non-demon because there's only 6 in the tavern at most normally.)

Mechs:

Pupbot is adorable and probably more powerful than our current 2/2 reborn overlords given how powerful Divine Shield can be. Pair that with a Grease Bot, for instance for some routine scaling. Mechano-tank is kinda whatever.

However, the jawdropper here is Holy Mecherel. Didn't Blizzard learn their lesson before? Holy Mack didn't need poison to be an awful card. You get two of them and they just miraculously just keep trading off divine shields back and forth. Considering they can both inherit DS from other minions, too, and this is going to be a card that will be a fan of scam builds and will create tons of tension until Blizzard finally capitulates and takes it out of the game.

Omega Buster is amazing. Goldrinn for mechs, basically. This is a real reason to take mechs to 6. And since mechs thrive off divine shield more than beasts thrive off anything else, I dare say this is considerably better than Goldrinn. I sincerely expect we're going to see some mech builds with 2 mecherels taunted, a couple omega busters, a baron, and two other divine shield bots.

Murlocs:

Without Tidecaller or Toxfin, murlocs are in a little bit of a strange place. However, Saltscale Honcho is a great non-battlecry buff effect that the tribe very much needed. Even more ridiculous is Swolefin, which can be as much as 16/8, and a triple goes to 32/16+24/12 = 56/28. That's with no Brann. You better believe you're going to see this fish punching through some stuff in the mid game.

SI:Sefin is a powerful, if unreliable replacement for Toxfin. Murlocs keep their poison identity, but you have to keep this card on the board, which is kinda weak for a 5, and you have to get 3 things to die first. I suppose you put existing poison up front and hope that dies off first because it's not very clear if it can retarget an already-poisonous murloc.

I do not understand the point of Seafood Slinger unless you can use it on tavern minions. About the only minion this is good for is SI:Sefin or maybe King Bagurgle. It comes down way too late to be good for Saltscale or Warleader. Someone wanna explain the strategy here?

Dragons:

Some crazy stuff in dragons. The new tier 1 can become a 32/3 on its own if you keep it. It gains health if you also have a Whelp Smuggler on board.

Tarecgosa is interesting, but I'm trying to figure out which effects you want to apply to it. Are there that many in-combat effects that this benefits from? Whelp Smuggler + Spawn of N'Zoth? Or is it all about the new Prized Promo-Drake, which turns Tarecgosa into an early tier Razorgore?

Prestor's Pyrospawn is a fantastic card that says fuck you to divine shield mechs. It might be the only thing that keeps Holy Mecherel from becoming an obnoxious meta-defining card.

Pirates:

Defiant Shipwright is mostly just stats on board unless you're playing Patches. Briny Bootlegger is some nice economy, and you don't have to worry about it not dying. Two of these fuel each other, and keeping one around doesn't feel anywhere near as bad as a Warden of Old.

Peggy Brittlebone is a sleeper that is going to be very powerful. Think of this being run with a strong bloodgem generator. Think of this with some of the new generator cards. At worst, you can buy 3 minions a turn and get +3 in the process, but the real craziness starts when you've got Hogger in play. APM pirates are suddenly not just about buffing Salty Looter and waiting for a Southsea Strongarm to buff your other minions.

Tony Two-Tusk makes your pirates golden, which I see as far more useful than Seafood Slinger since pirates often have passive effects that are meaningful to double. It's also going to be hilarious when this triggers mid-battle and saves something from dying due to the small stat bump. The real question is...how realistic is it to have 5 minions die while keeping this and another non-golden pirate alive? Sans exodia build, I think this is asking too much.

Nosy Looter is whatever. It's the grand fucking prize if you're playing Galakrond, but under any other circumstances it probably materializes too late to do much good. Even a YOLO build is going to need something with stronger tempo than a 7/6 to stabilize. My bet is it gets removes with the next real update. Either I'm underestimating it and it's oppressive, or I'm right and it's useless. There really is no sweet spot for this card.

Others:

Smogger is great. Dazzling Lightspawn is mini-Nomi and probably partners well with him, even if you're only likely getting at most +2 per turn. (Maybe you can get to 3 with a Djinni.) Recycling Wraith is okay for cycling. Master of Realities is underwhelming compared to Garr.

Gemsplitter is a silly follow-up to Tough Tusk.

Budding Greenthumb will take some setting up, but could pay off nicely. Witchwing Nestmatron is decent value, but what do you want to be playing to capitalize off the battlecries? Murlocs? Elementals? Now pirates? Just hope for a mug?

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Conclusion: I have no idea what I'm going to aim for tomorrow, but Bird Buddy, Mecherel-Buster, and Peggy APM all look like good options.

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Just realized I confused Tidecaller with Tidehunter. =x

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Pupbot honestly makes a level 1 Deryl strategy interesting

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I'll probably post a fuller analysis later, but for now I wanted to say that Arm Mechs was already the best climbing comp and it just got better. There is going to be a ton of it on ladder to start.

LiquidOshawott posted...

Pupbot honestly makes a level 1 Deryl strategy interesting

I thought of this, and since Deryl has always been my favorite hero I'll be trying it, but I don't think you can pull it off because you don't see enough minions at Tier 1 to make it work well. I think what it does do is enable Deryl to take on more of the delayed level curves (Jeef, Rafaam, Shinese, etc.) with perhaps some power.

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Nice try but we know Arm builds are dead now with that nerf. How do you expect to pull off a reasonable Mech Arm build (or any Arm build) now that she has 4 health instead of 5?

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This mercenaries reveal is bad. A bunch of random information on cards and spells and such and yet they haven't even explained how the core game actually works.

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The new Quest DH deck with Brutes and Lions Frenzy is super fun after playing it

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Guys, you missed the biggest change of all!

Battlegrounds is no longer beta!

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Game crashed before I got to see this one out, so I'm gonna ask everyone's thoughts on this board position:



Turn 11, 4 players left. I'm about to face first place.

Reminder:
The first minion, Omega Buster, will summon 6 microbots and give +1 to all mechs for each bot that doesn't get summoned. It's basically Goldrinn.
Middle minion, Pup Bot, is just stats.
The unshielded minions are Grease Bots. They give +2/+1 every time a minion loses a shield.
Right-most is Holy Mecherel, which gets a fresh shield every time something loses one.

Should I have moved the Omega Buster down? Would you put out the baron or the second mecherel over one of the existing minions? Wish I could have seen this one through.

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That looks like good positioning to me but yeah I would have put the Baron in I think.

There's a bug with Rattlegore and the new card that gives +2 health to dragons when they gain attack. For some reason it's giving him way too much health. I had a golden health giver and a regular and he was getting like 200 health a turn with 4 dragons on board.

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Too much slowdown, system crashing, and minions randomly inverting order on their own since the patch.

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BGs has so many glitches right now. Meanwhile they forgot to close the prior season's leaderboard when the patch changed again, so if you play a game your MMR goes to zero on the last season's, too. It's happened every patch, except instead of taking a few hours like prior patches, they still haven't closed it. As of this post something like 100 people have fallen off the season 4 leaderboard, including the #1 and half of the top 10.

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Last game all of the top 4 were playing Razorgore + Whelper

I won because mine was 72/1201 and the others were in the 400 to 600 range. My game crashed and I didn't even get to see the final combat though. How did they remove the frog so quickly but leave this in the game?

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IDK what I'm doing wrong in Battlegrounds right now but I'm getting absolutely fucked every game.

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For once, that's not happening to me with every game following a new patch.

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taunted Mecherel build with Gemsplitter is ridiculous. Most fun I've had with a build in a while.



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I woke up today actually excited to play some Hearthstone (for some reason) and I was completely deflated after a few games against Quest Mage. Such an unfun experience to play against that deck

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I agree. I know Quest Mage isn't supposed to technically be all that good, but it still sucks to fight them

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I swear this new patch for battlegrounds is designed for flexing your ridiculous boards.



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That combo is so stupid that if I had Maxima I would do it too

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Started getting tilted by Paladins on ladder and decided to try out a regular Control Warlock from the last expansion.

For the love of god do NOT try this if you ever want to play Hearthstone again.

(didn't run into a single Paladin btw)

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Honestly warlocks now are basically just control warlocks just better, hit legend with one just now by trying it for the first time

Also Rod is pretty OP

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Completely balanced.

I went on to lose that to another frogger build, btw.

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Just hit legend with Shadow Priest. Basically a guaranteed win against Warlock and Mage but very hard matchups against Shaman, Paladin, and Taunt Druid.

Dumping your hand and playing Illucia might be my favorite awful thing to do in Hearthstone.

There was also a game with Gandling where I played him on turn 3 with two 0 minions, played raise dead and then played the 0 minions again. So I summoned a 3/6 and four 4/4s on turn 3. Maybe the most oppressive opening in standard right now but it's crazy rare to actually happen.

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One of my losses was actually to a Control warrior running the rush package so yeah that makes sense. I don't feel like enough people are playing Shadow Priest from D5 to legend to justify playing that deck though since you auto lose to Mage/Warlock.

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Oh I meant you auto lose to Warlock if you're playing Control/Rush Warrior. Shadow Priest vs Warlock was pretty much a guaranteed win and I wasn't even running Bonechewer Brawler.

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