Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Catch-all

Not anymore it's not!

On that note, i'm surprised by the KB nerf, as that didn't have long left anyway...

But on that same note, goodbye Odd Paladin. The Druid nerfs however... worry me, but I'm not sure what to articulate there. The 3 cost for their first ramp spell seems... lame, especially after innervate's nerf. the 5 cost to 6 seems... equally weird. I think that one probably should have stayed at cost, but moved to 2 empty mana crystals rather than 2 full. Hopefully this means in the future we'll see more interesting ramp conditions for them that might actually see play instead.

Amusingly though, it would seem, in spite of it being the second thing to pop up after your quests... a lot of people missed the memo and I've been destroying Odd Paladins and Deathrattle Hunters (which, yeah, didn't get much pain anyway) all night. Occasionally seeing some oddities (dragon mage being one that defeated me, almost entirely on the back of an unexpected Splitting Images) and a return to basically just aggro mage and tempo lock based mostly on that 3/3 that grows with attacks... which my deck is pretty well built to already counter anyway. It's fascinating to me though how little representation this deck has gotten outside of one Toast stream (and subsequent video) and a Deck Doctor video with Firebat. At least prior to today, it seemed to counter a good chunk of the meta decks (Kingsbane notwithstanding, though I still have seen SO FEW of those)... which has gotten me to my highest monthly rating thus far at rank 9.

KB Rogue is dead again. I actually predicted that it would be the first deck to get nerfed. I wish I had posted that here. Being right feels good, but it feels even better when others witness it. Haha.

Druid as a whole got stomped. But mana cheating is so good, I won’t be surprised if those cards still get played.

Odd Pally was foreseeable. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I need 10 more wins for my golden Pally. Even Pally here I come! My only golden hero so far is Warlock. The irony is that Warlock is my favorite HS hero, but Paladin is my 5th favorite. Paladin has had the most powerful decks in HS for at least 2 full years. I didn’t play Pally because I loved the class. I played it because it feels good to win.

Here’s my favorite to least favorite list of HS heroes:
1. Warlock
2. Hunter
3. Mage
4. Rogue
5. Paladin
6. Druid
7. Priest
8. Shaman
9. Warrior

Though I did love pre-nerf Patron Warrior.

What are y’alls’ ranked list of HS heroes?

RawkGWJ wrote:

Here’s my favorite to least favorite list of HS heroes:
1. Warlock
2. Hunter
3. Mage
4. Rogue
5. Paladin
6. Druid
7. Priest
8. Shaman
9. Warrior

Though I did love pre-nerf Patron Warrior.

What are y’alls’ ranked list of HS heroes?

I'm loving the nerfs, since I didn't play any of those decks other than a Shudderwork variant in Wild, and even that nerf (to Saronite Chain Gang) seems fair to me. I'm also liking the arena changes announced (removing MCT, and re-adding some previously removed cards).

My list of class favorites:

(What I play 75% of the time)
1. Mage (preferring control/secret-heavy decks - about 10 wins away from a golden one in NA region, which would be my first one)
2. Priest (preferring dragon\theft decks - almost up to 400 wins in NA)
3. Rogue (preferring burglary decks in wild - around 150 wins)

(Not my favorites, but I don't mind them)
4. Warrior (preferring dragon\mech decks - around 130 wins)
5. Shaman (preferring evolve\Shudderwock decks in wild - around 100 wins)

(Least favorite)
6. Paladin (preferring Reno decks in wild - around 150 wins)
7. Warlock (preferring Demon/Reno decks in wild - around 180 wins)
8. Hunter (preferring midrange & dinomancer decks - around 130 wins)
9. Druid (just use a mishmash of potent cards...bleh - around 150 wins)

I'd probably be higher in ranked wins, but I moved to casual for easier quest completion until they re-worked the ladder last year. Deck-wise, I play no netdecks, just non-competitive fun controllish & midrange decks. I hate combo decks, and am not a big fan of aggro decks either.

Classes themselves are largely irrelevant to me. I just enjoy deck types... usually fair zoo, midrange, and goofy (see Academic Espionage rogue).

This has generally led to shaman, paladin (galvadon), and Priest (Lyra/Dragon Soul, how I will miss you when you rotate).

Rush Warrior feels decently midrange so I’ve been playing a lot of it. I’ll post the deck list when I get home tonight.

As promised, Rush Warrior. Keleseth is the obvious keep in the Mulligan, I've found either a Blood Razor or Town Crier is generally a good keep too. Obvious question is Town Crier Pre or Post Keleseth and I've rarely found it to matter, the extra card and option in hand usually works better. I've also found a Spirit of the Rhino to be a good keep if you don't know what you're up against. An immune Crowley, Zilliax, or Akali is just bonkers, especially if you can immune out Akali's buffed up buddy too... ESPECIALLY if that buffed up buddy is Crowley or Zilliax.

Spoiler:

### Rush 'em!
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raven
#
# 2x (1) Eternium Rover
# 2x (1) Spirit of the Rhino
# 2x (1) Town Crier
# 1x (2) Prince Keleseth
# 2x (3) Frothing Berserker
# 2x (3) Rabid Worgen
# 2x (4) Blood Razor
# 1x (4) Kor'kron Elite
# 2x (4) Militia Commander
# 2x (4) Saronite Chain Gang
# 1x (4) Spellbreaker
# 1x (5) Darius Crowley
# 1x (5) Dyn-o-matic
# 2x (5) Fungalmancer
# 1x (5) Supercollider
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 1x (7) Countess Ashmore
# 1x (8) Akali, the Rhino
# 1x (8) Grommash Hellscream
# 1x (8) Scourgelord Garrosh
# 1x (8) The Lich King
#
AAECAYwWDBzSAvIFws4Cn9MCnOICze8Cm/ACjvsCnvsCoIADmocDCY4Fm8sCzM0C0eECuuwCnfAC0fUCs/wCkpgDAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

New “thing” happening. A number of accounts were gifted with a cursed Hakkar cardback. Other folks get it by playing someone with that cardback. Picked it up last night working on my five wins per month, and it can be gifted with friends games so if anyone needs it and sees me on HS (usually later in the evening) hit me up.

I'm fairly certain this patch has been a buff to all the decks I dislike playing against.

I FINALLY felt comfortable with Control Dragon Priest and now am having a tough time recently. I clawed my way up to rank 11 and then got shut down by Wall Priest and Odd Warrior. I think I got into my own head about how to play against Wall Priest that it put me on tilt. It feels so counterintuitive to play that matchup and even when I try to just keep a rezzed grizzly at low(er) health and not kill it, I still got punished with leaving just a little too much hp and there was lethal!

So I’ve just been noodling with the Rumble Run single player whenever I feel like playing because I got so demoralized by dropping 4 games straight.

Never mind! I figured it out! My meta has just shifted to to target Priest’s like mad, so after VS’s Meta Report came out I started playing Rush Warrior. I can confirm that this is a fun deck (if you have the dust, yikes is it expensive!) and beats up on Midrange Hunter and Odd Pally without having to sit back and Tank Up! Play it now before it becomes too popular and gets targeted!

### Ruuuuush
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raven
#
# 2x (1) Eternium Rover
# 2x (1) Town Crier
# 1x (2) Prince Keleseth
# 2x (3) Frothing Berserker
# 2x (3) Mountainfire Armor
# 2x (3) Rabid Worgen
# 2x (4) Blood Razor
# 2x (4) Kor'kron Elite
# 2x (4) Militia Commander
# 2x (4) Spellbreaker
# 1x (5) Darius Crowley
# 1x (5) Fungalmancer
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 1x (6) Sul'thraze
# 2x (7) Amani War Bear
# 1x (7) Countess Ashmore
# 1x (8) Akali, the Rhino
# 1x (8) Grommash Hellscream
# 1x (8) Scourgelord Garrosh
# 1x (8) The Lich King
#
AAECAQcK0gLCzgKf0wLR4QKc4gLN7wKb8AKggAOIhwOahwMKHI4F8gXKzQLMzQK67AKd8ALR9QKz/ALYjAMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

In case anyone hadn't seen this - initial rotation details came out today: Year of the Dragon

Some highlights:

- Nine cards will be moved to HoF, including Naturalize, Divine Favor, Doomguard, and Genn/Baku & other odd/even cards (a year early)

- Arena will be changed to start rotating sets every other month. With the first rotation, the Arena draft pool will contain the following sets: Basic, Classic, Curse of Naxxramas, Whispers of the Old Gods, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, The Witchwood, and the first expansion of this year.

- Next expansion will have a new, expanded single-player mode, similar to Dungeon Run, but with unlockable hero powers, Anomaly play mode, etc. However, it'll be divided into 5 wings (similar to old adventures) and cost 700 gold per wing to unlock, or $20 altogether. (Edit - The first wing is apparently free, and you'll be rewarded with three packs from the new expansion for completing each wing.)

- Option will be added to use random cardbacks each match

- Arena wins will start counting toward golden hero

- Deckbuilder will be improved. Examples I saw from Blizz interviews in other articles mentioned it would try to build a deck based on Blizz's database of what decks were good, with the cards you had available.

Nice to see these changes but they really need to implement a game mode that matches their tournament-du-jour.

It's insane that still after so many years the style of play they use to sell the game through their marquee events isn't available in game.

That aside, with no carder for the adventures I can't imagine I would buy those. I may play more arena now though.

I have enough gold to buy the adventures without using cash money. If the first one isn’t really good, I probably won’t buy the rest... Well, I’ll probably buy the puzzle mode adventure... And they do come with card packs and a guaranteed legendary... hmm...

-

The real reason I came to this thread is that I want to make sure that HS Goodjers know about the new deck builder. The one that’s been in the game from day one. Blizzard has improved it and IT’S REALLY GOOD.

It automatically builds you a great deck from the cards in your own collection. I’ve been experimenting with it a bit. It’s not perfect but it’s very impressive. You can even put some cards in a deck and have the deck builder finish the deck for you. Put only Genn or Baku in a deck and it will only put odd or even cards in. You can put a specific “card package” in a deck and have the deck builder flesh it out for you automatically. It supposedly tries to build the best deck possible from your collection.

I’ve tested a few auto built decks, and they are legit. It seems like it leans towards fast decks, which makes me happy. I started with zero cards and clicked the auto builder. Mage and Rogue were fast. Druid gave me a taunt deck. Shaman gave me an elemental Shudderwock deck. Pally gave me an odd deck, which has been the most winning deck for about a year. So it seems to be working properly.

Supposedly it’s algorithm uses in depth card statistics including data on how specific cards interact with each other. It seems to be doing exactly what HSReplay does, but with a one button interface. And you can’t play with the database like you can with HSReplay. But those are minor concerns. I’m really curious to know if Blizzard worked with the HSReplay folks directly, or just followed their example.

I’d love to know how other Goodjers feel about this feature after using it.

Ya know, I was wondering about that. I really hate using Rogue. But I did an auto deck to make a Rogue deck and now I am having a great time with that class. I am pretty impressed. All of a sudden I am wanting to play as Rogue, where before if a Quest involved playing that class I'd groan.

It's up and down.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’d love to know how other Goodjers feel about this feature after using it.

It built me a nice Priest Dragon deck when I pressed "Go" on an empty board, but then I flipped over to Warrior, put in Dragon Roar, Smolderthorn Lancer and War Master Voone... and the auto-builder gave me a deck with no dragons in it.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

It's up and down.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’d love to know how other Goodjers feel about this feature after using it.

It built me a nice Priest Dragon deck when I pressed "Go" on an empty board, but then I flipped over to Warrior, put in Dragon Roar, Smolderthorn Lancer and War Master Voone... and the auto-builder gave me a deck with no dragons in it.

Maybe it’s trying to tell you that dragon warrior is a terrible choice. Haha.

Heh! The first thing machine learning needs to learn is sometimes humans deliberately make bad decisions.

There does seem to be something up with Warrior though. If the only card I put in is Fire Plume's Heart it should be pretty clear to the AI what I'm intending... so it's confusing when it then builds me a deck with only four taunts.

Taunt Warrior might be a bad choice, but if the only thing I do is put in the Quest it should pick up that I'm going to need enough cards to actually trigger the quest.

Yeah. I was just trying to be funny. There’s clearly some problems with the system. It will be interesting to see if Blizzard works towards refining it. I guess I won’t be canceling my HSReplay premium subscription after all. Haha

Got started on this a few weeks ago, having a good time. I've got a quest to spectate a friend's win. Anyone up for it? Argent#11448

I’m RawkGWJ#1810

There is a google spread sheet somewhere on the webs with many, many Goodjer handles. I usually play at least a few games per day.

-

I’m still having fun playing auto built decks. The system seems to be working great. Though my personal sample size is too small to be relevant, I seem to be winning more with auto built decks than I am with HSReplay decks.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’m RawkGWJ#1810

There is a google spread sheet somewhere on the webs with many, many Goodjer handles. I usually play at least a few games per day.

-

I’m still having fun playing auto built decks. The system seems to be working great. Though my personal sample size is too small to be relevant, I seem to be winning more with auto built decks than I am with HSReplay decks.

Cool, I'll add you. Another friend showed up, so I got the one for now, but always good to have people

Glad to hear the auto decks are doing well, it's a good feature!

I'm thinking abut jumping back in with the new release. I haven't played much in the last year, but Hearthstone is still my favorite CCG. My fear, as always, is that I spend a bunch of money on the new cards, and I'm not happy with the results. My hope is that a new year brings a new meta that is easier to get into.

Any thoughts?

Well this is the rotation so this should be a good point of inflexion.

Some of the new cards are pretty interesting but depending on what you disliked about the game initially that might not really change. The basic structure of the game will still be there and the basic set is still around. If there was a specific deck you hated that's most likely gone, but the archetype is probably still around (if that makes sense?).

Aristophan wrote:

I'm thinking abut jumping back in with the new release. I haven't played much in the last year, but Hearthstone is still my favorite CCG. My fear, as always, is that I spend a bunch of money on the new cards, and I'm not happy with the results. My hope is that a new year brings a new meta that is easier to get into.

Any thoughts?

I'm with you. I stopped playing some months ago. I was barely spending any money to buy cards while finishing as many quests as possible, but it just felt very grindy. And when I did have success, it was with a popular meta tweaked to my own ends. Basically, I found I could create my own decks, say hell with the rare cards, and struggle, or I could play an established archetype and do better. Zzzzzzzzz....

Aristophan wrote:

I'm thinking abut jumping back in with the new release. I haven't played much in the last year, but Hearthstone is still my favorite CCG. My fear, as always, is that I spend a bunch of money on the new cards, and I'm not happy with the results. My hope is that a new year brings a new meta that is easier to get into.

Any thoughts?

I know I keep crowing about the auto deck builder, but it might be a good tool for people who want to play non meta strategies. For instance, you can put in a “card package” with a strategy that you want to try and then let the autobuilder fill out the deck. Or, you can let the autobuilder create a deck from scratch and then swap in tech cards of your liking.

RawkGWJ wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

I'm thinking abut jumping back in with the new release. I haven't played much in the last year, but Hearthstone is still my favorite CCG. My fear, as always, is that I spend a bunch of money on the new cards, and I'm not happy with the results. My hope is that a new year brings a new meta that is easier to get into.

Any thoughts?

I know I keep crowing about the auto deck builder, but it might be a good tool for people who want to play non meta strategies. For instance, you can put in a “card package” with a strategy that you want to try and then let the autobuilder fill out the deck. Or, you can let the autobuilder create a deck from scratch and then swap in tech cards of your liking.

The smart deck builder can only do so much to make off-meta decks work. If you toss Moorabi and two frost shocks into a deck you're still going to end up with Elemental Shaman + Moorabi and two frost shocks instead of a deck built around Moorabi and freezing because a slightly worse Elemental Shaman is still better than any sort of Freeze Shaman that can be made with the cards that currently exist. There were a decent number of complaints about this in the HS reddit when the smart deck builder was just released.

I'm actually quite excited for the feature that automatically makes your old decks standard legal again after the rotation (when almost all current decks become Wild), I'm really interested in seeing what the tool will come up with for decks that have been particularly gutted.

I took the plunge, and prepurchased the $50 package. I also found out I was sitting on 3000 dust, so hopefully I'll be able to put together a fun deck. I'm sure that there are some cards from the last few expansions I will need to craft.

Aristophan wrote:

I took the plunge, and prepurchased the $50 package. I also found out I was sitting on 3000 dust, so hopefully I'll be able to put together a fun deck. I'm sure that there are some cards from the last few expansions I will need to craft.

If you've got dust lying around, you might as well craft Baku and Genn. They'll be Hall of Famed so you'll get the dust back after the rotation next week, but they'll likely be Wild staples for the foreseeable future (like Reno and Kazakus).

Tailsnake wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

I took the plunge, and prepurchased the $50 package. I also found out I was sitting on 3000 dust, so hopefully I'll be able to put together a fun deck. I'm sure that there are some cards from the last few expansions I will need to craft.

If you've got dust lying around, you might as well craft Baku and Genn. They'll be Hall of Famed so you'll get the dust back after the rotation next week, but they'll likely be Wild staples for the foreseeable future (like Reno and Kazakus).

Good idea! I had forgotten about that.

If you are interested in getting the iOS or Android card backs, and just have a PC/Mac client, you can adjust a config file to get them:

Just edit the "client.config" file in the game folder and add

[Emulation]
emulateOnDevice = 1
DeviceName = "Android Phone"

for android card back &

[Emulation]
emulateOnDevice = 1
DeviceName = "iPhone"

for Ios card back.

I like the random card back feature, but I wish it worked the way Fortnite does. What I mean is you could “favorite” multiple card backs and then it would randomly select one of your favorites.

Tailsnake wrote:

The smart deck builder can only do so much to make off-meta decks work. If you toss Moorabi and two frost shocks into a deck you're still going to end up with Elemental Shaman + Moorabi and two frost shocks instead of a deck built around Moorabi and freezing because a slightly worse Elemental Shaman is still better than any sort of Freeze Shaman that can be made with the cards that currently exist. There were a decent number of complaints about this in the HS reddit when the smart deck builder was just released.

For people who like playing off-meta decks (like me), I recommend just playing casual. Or, if you have to play ranked, acknowledge that you're going to stay at or below rank 15 and start conceding against decks you can't beat. If you know there are certain meta decks you have nearly no chance again, just concede (even if the game hasn't started) and move on to a better matchup. For instance, I like slow decks that have no chance against Odd Rogue/Odd Pally/Even Shaman, so I concede as soon as Genn/Baku show up for one of those classes. I've liked this game a lot more since I adopted those rules. I might miss out on a win here or there, but overall I waste less time and I lose less, so I get less tilted.

Oh, and you can play Wild for variety as well, as long as you don't plan to rank too high. I'm actually playing more Wild than Standard these days, and will probably continue that for the next month or so until I pick up enough new cards to make some decent Standard decks.