Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Catch-all

I havent played this version of Pirate Warrior yet but it seems like it pretty much loses about one card this spring. If it's as oppressive as people say in a while then it should see some nerfs.

Aggro decks are always part of a healthy meta. They keep the game from devolving into slapfights to fatigue every other game. Typically it doesnt take that much skill to just go face, but to keep winning when the meta starts teching against you usually is more difficult than people will give good aggro players credit for.

It's only been a few days and slower decks tend to be well... slower to put together while people figure out what the right answers and tech choices are.

Also regarding the habit of describing decks as cancer, from the CompetitiveHS subreddit:

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So this is how quiting the game worked out for me: I spend saturday afternoon on the couch battling the tail end of a cold watching netflix and decided I should take a look at the faction quests on my tablet. Needless to say everyone was throwing around new cards and instantly regretted skipping the preorder.

Then I saw that 40 pack bundles were 30% off via amazon coins and there were offers to get 2.500 coins for 5 EUR and around 25% off 5.000 coins... I ended up buying 120 packs (3x40) for around 65 EUR instead of 50 for 45 EUR with the preorder.

Out of the 120 packs I got 5 legendaries:

Spoiler:

Genzo, Kazakus, Kun, Genzo and Kun...

I also ended up with a couple of packs that had 3 or 4 of the same commons. I remember the pack RNG being bad bot not this bad. But at least I got 3720 dust after the auto disenchant. I guess that will be enough to craft whatever I'm missing for one or two of the tier 1 decks I end up interested in.

I did toy around with Reno bevor starting Karazhan which took all the time I had to spend on gaming today. I was really surprised how much fun Karazhan turned out to be! They really created some fun encounters for this one.

How much time do I have to finish the intro quests? Hopefully until a week after launch? I might not find the time to finish them otherwise.

Yeah it is really annoying that their code does not prevent you from getting duplicates within the same pack.

Well, I made the conscious decision not to buy any new packs so I'd feel the pleasure of starting off with nothing and slowly working my way up to some decent decks with the new cards.

And after a couple of days, it's clear I'm gonna be slumming around rank 20 for a while.

Really feel like warlocks did not need ANOTHER "destroy a minion" with little to no consequence spell. Seriously, that "destroy a minion, lose a mana crystal" is a cheap auto-destroy with no consequence (unless you cast it first and needed that last mana to do something else) from turn 10 on. Seriously annoying in an expansion that seems to have so many buffs.

That said, my modified dragon priest deck got me to 15 tonight. Out-tempo-ing Jade Druids. Seems to be about an even shot on Reno Warlocks. Reno Priest still seems... really weird to me. Free Hero Power for the game seems terribly broken (though seeing someone use it then forbidden shaping for a 6/6 C'thun was preeeeeeetty funny).

Best game of the night, though, was against another Dragon Priest. I managed to copy his Operative 3 times in a row. Had 4 of the damn things on the board at the end of the game with one still in hand. Followed closely by a revamped Rez/Control priest against a Ramp Druid. Mindgames-ed out his Rag on turn 3 with 2 Rezzes in hand (and drew my first bishop on turn 4), just before the druid conceded. Pretty sure I will never top that with that deck and can't decide if i want to play it again. XD

OK, I take it all back. The right Jade Druid lists are really really good.

Right now all the top decks (Pirate Warrior, Jade Druid, Dragon Priest, Midrange Shaman) are all susceptible to Freeze Mage...

... and Jade Druid seems to all but guarantee that there will be no Control Warriors.

I was just about to give my freeze mage trip report: still hard to play, still good.

Also I cobbled together a bad nzoth control pally deck that pumps minions up and feels so good when you draw well. It's bad though.

That Dirty Rat is a much better card than what I expected it to be.

Nevermind, nothing is good against Pirate Warrior. I'd have to tech in two Oozes and two Arcane Explosions to even have a chance.

I miss deathlord

_Free_ wrote:

Nevermind, nothing is good against Pirate Warrior. I'd have to tech in two Oozes and two Arcane Explosions to even have a chance.

I beat all the Pirate Warrios I faced while messing around with Hotform's that Reno Priest list. Maybe I got lucky? It was only 4-5 matches.

Tyops wrote:
_Free_ wrote:

Nevermind, nothing is good against Pirate Warrior. I'd have to tech in two Oozes and two Arcane Explosions to even have a chance.

I beat all the Pirate Warrios I faced while messing around with Hotform's that Reno Priest list. Maybe I got lucky? It was only 4-5 matches.

I've had some success with a few Reno decks, but mostly it feels like they didn't draw well.

If this dominance continues over the next few weeks, Pirate Warrior is going on the Mount Rushmore of oppressive OP decks with Beta Miracle Rogue, Undertaker Hunter, Secret Paladin, and Midrange Shaman.

There has to be some solution, because the only other option is that Blizzard just doesn't play test anything. Anyone casually looking through the new cards would think 'hmm lots of pirate buffs, let me try one out!', so I have to believe that Blizzard buffed pirates on purpose and there are counters available that they found in their play testing.

LeapingGnome wrote:

There has to be some solution, because the only other option is that Blizzard just doesn't play test anything. Anyone casually looking through the new cards would think 'hmm lots of pirate buffs, let me try one out!', so I have to believe that Blizzard buffed pirates on purpose and there are counters available that they found in their play testing.

The problem is Patches. Pirate Warrior was a Tier 3 deck before the expansion (at best).

Patches costs 0 mana, is played on turn 1, doesn't cost you a card slot in either in your deck or in your hand (95% of the time), has Charge, and is tribal.

Small Time Buccaneer also exacerbates the problem, but it's Patches that is doing all the work here. I have no idea why they printed this card.

I watched some of a tournament over the weekend. Pirate Warrior won every non-mirror match on turn 5 with substantial overkill. The solution to Reno: kill them before turn 6.

Just faced 8 Pirate Warriors in a row, lost all 8. Tried Dragon Priest with Ooze, not enough. Tried Shaman with Mistress, double Maelstrom, and Spirit Claws. Not enough.

I think I might be done with HS for a bit. This is beyond the pale.

_Free_ wrote:

The problem is Patches. Pirate Warrior was a Tier 3 deck before the expansion (at best).

Yes, with Patches N'Zoth's First mate becomes a Muster for battle for 1 mana (-1 dude, 1-durability, +1 tribal synergy).

As for fighting the Pirates, taunts and healing are the way to go. Sometimes you just don't win I assume. Dirty rat is good too if you dont have zero board. A lot of their minions have charge/battlecry so when you can pull them and handle them they start losing steam.

What rank were you up to facing all these warrios?

Was using this list Kazakus-Raza-Reno that Hotform was streaming with all weekend.

He had replaced the Pries of the Feast for Wrathion when he started seeing more slow matches on high legend ranks. That's the only deck he played to ladder apparently.

0-12 in last 12 against Pirate Warrior...

I was level 9, now I'm 13.

EDIT: Just won a few, but this is ridiculous. Out of my last 20 matches, 18 have been against Pirate Warrior.

EDIT2: 20 of 22 now. 10 straight.

EDIT3: I'm using that Reno Priest, but it's now to the point where I don't even think I should keep it in mulligan. I've never gotten to turn 6 when I've had it.

_Free_ wrote:

0-12 in last 12 against Pirate Warrior...

I was level 9, now I'm 13.

EDIT: Just won a few, but this is ridiculous. Out of my last 20 matches, 18 have been against Pirate Warrior.

Geez... did you dip your mouse into Pirate Warrior mating pheromones?

You're a pretty heavy outlier judging by VS's prelim stats. There must be gluts of warrios at different ranks though.

There are no deck archetypes - only data for classes. Nevertheless here goes the class win rates I calculated.

Shaman 59.0% (no surprises) Warrior 54.0% (Welcome mr Patches) Druid 52.1% (Jade golem is not all bad) Priest 47.9% (Hello) Warlock 46.3% Mage 43.1% Hunter 42.3% Paladin 40.3% Rogue 35.2%

Can't wait for the full report on Thursday.

Edit - the figures including class frequency (more accurate obv. seem to be more like: Shaman: 0.5412, Warrior: 0.5410, Warlock: 0.5040, Priest: 0.4861, Druid: 0.4846, Mage: 0.4798, Rogue: 0.4615, Paladin: 0.4196, Hunter: 0.4191.
_Free_ wrote:

EDIT3: I'm using that Reno Priest, but it's now to the point where I don't even think I should keep it in mulligan. I've never gotten to turn 6 when I've had it.

I usually ship everything that isnt early game (reno included).

I've been having a lot of success with a list that's almost exactly the "Mean Market" Paladin recipe for Grimy Goons buffing shenanigans.

I haven't faced a ton of pirate warriors, but it does pretty well against Dragon Priest and Jade Druids by getting bigger minions on the board quicker (if you get the right combo of buffs and minions in your starting hand).

***Doppelgangster is probably MVP of this deck, btw....

I reinstalled last night to get a taste of the new expansion. Everything is more fun than I remembered, so I guess I'm all-in again. I ended up spending more time making a list of cards I want to craft than actually playing.

chaosmos wrote:

I've been having a lot of success with a list that's almost exactly the "Mean Market" Paladin recipe for Grimy Goons buffing shenanigans.

I haven't faced a ton of pirate warriors, but it does pretty well against Dragon Priest and Jade Druids by getting bigger minions on the board quicker (if you get the right combo of buffs and minions in your starting hand).

***Doppelgangster is probably MVP of this deck, btw....

Are you running the Don? He's on my crafting short list right behind the new Priest legendary and maybe Aya. Patches is tempting too, but I'm generally not an aggro kind of guy.

There are no deck archetypes - only data for classes. Nevertheless here goes the class win rates I calculated.

Shaman 59.0% (no surprises) Warrior 54.0% (Welcome mr Patches) Druid 52.1% (Jade golem is not all bad) Priest 47.9% (Hello) Warlock 46.3% Mage 43.1% Hunter 42.3% Paladin 40.3% Rogue 35.2%

Can't wait for the full report on Thursday.

Edit - the figures including class frequency (more accurate obv. seem to be more like: Shaman: 0.5412, Warrior: 0.5410, Warlock: 0.5040, Priest: 0.4861, Druid: 0.4846, Mage: 0.4798, Rogue: 0.4615, Paladin: 0.4196, Hunter: 0.4191.

Reporting in from the very bottom: I saw 0 Warriors from Rank 25 to 19! I may just hang around down here for awhile.

Yea, I ranked up 20 to 17 or 16 today and only faced 1 warrior (who was indeed playing pirate). Pretty spread out really now that I think about it; I believe I faced every class at least once and can't remember any class I played more than twice. If there was one it was warlock.

A shame as I built a deck that I assumed would crush pirates and then only saw one (and it was a loss, I needed one more health). Fortunately it did alright against everyone else, even if it went 0% vs what it was supposed to beat.

Solution to Pirate, Taunts out the wazoo. Makes Shaman and Dragon Priest (for now), less so when TGT and Blackrock Mountain phase out unless the first expansion has some cards to replicate some of the then missing ones like Chillmaw, the 2/6 that becomes a 3/6 taunt with a dragon in hand, and the 1/4 that becomes 2/4 with taunt with dragon in hand.

Keep a wall of taunts up long enough and they can't go face often enough for it to matter. Along with lots of 3 attack minion removal, a few 5+ attack removals, and they can't keep anything going other than their weapon, which they can rarely hit face with. The new Bird dude and that gives +3 health helps a lot with that too.

I dunno, maybe I'm just lucky, but it seems like most of the folks playing Pirate Warrior are a lot like the folks that were playing Face Hunter and early Midrange Shaman, they just don't get what makes them powerful and just throw cards and hope they win... and weirdly attack anything that's blocking face without thought (thanks for attacking Tirion dude, now I can ram your face with him, then dragonfire potion to kill him to get my sword to face you for an extra 5 for the win this turn).

Got so frustrated that I just built a Taunt Warrior deck with Ooze and Harrison. Won 2 in a row. Then realized the deck was trash and improved it. Came out with this.

I actually think this is a legit deck. Silences/spot removal are the big counters. Grimy Gadgeteer is WAAAAY better than I thought going into the set. Just getting a single buff is worth it and getting 2 or more buffs is insane. Pair it with taunts and weapons to protect it and things can get out of control. In fact, it's your single win condition against Priest (it's got 4 attack).

Battle Rage gives it some draw and consistency. Varian is a great card to draw out more taunts.

It's still really disconcerting that I have to go to these lengths to beat a single deck (and have poor winrates against control). Patches has to be nerfed.

I also ran into 0 warriors in my push to complete the gang quests last night (6 games in a row). I ran into Murloc Paladin, some wonky Priest deck, and Midrange Shaman. This is probably because it was other people also doing the quests.

This one Murloc Paladin got out a great board. Murloc Knight, inspired to get a Murloc Warleader, then he dropped some other things the next turn. I seriously thought I was hosed, until I got my Sylvanas. Cleared his board, stole his then 7/1 Knight, and wound up winning with 1 health. It was a truly satisfying game.

_Free_ wrote:

Got so frustrated that I just built a Taunt Warrior deck with Ooze and Harrison. Won 2 in a row. Then realized the deck was trash and improved it. Came out with this.

Thanks for posting this. I usually try out every deck you post at least once - I have been running your Hunter Beast Token deck on and off for a few days.

I need a deck to clear the "Play 50 Rogue Class Cards" quest. Any suggestions?