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Hearthstone [IRC Channel #Skillstone]

Hello friends. I've not posted here a bunch, but I have a quick announcement.

I have been trying to get a private Hearthstone room on the server where we can talk about this wonderful game in real time. In order to get one, I need roughly 20-30 people to express interest. I'd hate to sound like a like whore, but if you could like this, or post on my wall indicating that you're interested, it'll greatly help the cause to get us a room! :)
 
So I'm playing the weekly brawl which is just Discovery + Pirates again.

I'm playing rogue and fairly ahead, what with 2 Drakonid Crushers being powered up. I had a preparation in my hand for a while, when in a fairly poor run of 3 cards, I see the card that sneaks 3 Anubar Ambushers into their deck. I take it, use prep, and only then realize my mistake; we don't draw shit in this brawl.

But then later, I had to the chance to get Jeeves. There were probably better cards. But I took Jeeves anyway. So the opposing mage freezes my board, ends turn, and draws 2 Ambushers while at 8 health. Fucking amazing.
 
So despite me really hating the meta I'm kind of enjoying it now. Last season I grinded Patron, Handlock, and Blood lust Shaman to legend and their match-ups really cover one another if you're running into a lot of specific threats. Probably use the same trio to do it this month
 
Ary said:
Should've been the year of the druid.
Click to expand...

We'll have to wait and see on this one. There are two other pieces to the Triforce we don't have yet: the fact that Blizzard will be making changes to some Basic and Classic cards (there are already rumors that certain Druid cards will be looked at pretty hard) and there will be a new expansion released in the Spring and we don't know ANY of the cards from said set. There are too many people in the community looking at things through the lens of the current cardpool IMO. For all we know we could get a neutral 2 drop with the same stats as Mad Scientist, but the Secret gets put into your hand and not in play, for example.

All this being said, the more I think about the Standard format, the more excited I get. Initially, I thought it was way too soon for Blizzard to do this, but I've since changed my mind. I dunno about you guys, but the game got pretty boring once Secret Paladin was "discovered" and refined. That deck is more broken than Midrange Hunter ever was...yes even the Undertaker version. The deck existing also gives you no reason to play Midrange Hunter, if you think about it despite Midrange Hunter actually having a decent matchup vs. it - every play Paladin has on curve is better than pretty much anything Hunter could play on curve. No longer being able to buy adventures that rotate out anymore really sucks though (and from my understanding, expansions as well).

The meta will likely shift back to aggro/face decks, but as soon as the first good tempo/midrange deck pops up, most people will switch to that since tempo is what we've been used to for the past almost 2 years.
 
I'm actually fairly confident in a control metagame. Aggro lost A LOT of tools and with all the good DR's gone we now have AoE that can, you know, clear a board.

I imagine it will be a slightly faster meta than beta was, which was fucking slow www
 
Hey so would you guys want to do a tournament? We can do either standard or wild, conquest or lhs and all that jazz. I can make a challonge if there is a demand for it. Also what cards do you guys think are going to get nerfed? Obvious sr nerf is obvious but saddening to me since I like playing egg Druid :( people are saying Alex will get nerfed but idk there are a lot worse offenders like knife juggler which don't cost 9 mana. And as trump has said, a 8+ mana card needs to win you the game to see play.
 
I'd love a tournament but I'm on EU so I guess I don't apply.

Nerf-wise I think Antonidas might actually get the nerf over Alex , and Knife Juggler and possibly Doomhammer seem like good targets for a nerf as well. I'd like Power Overwhelming nerfed too, (hell, they can even make it cost 0) but I guess that's just personal preference and a slight fear of the fact that Combolock will probably be the main Reno Warlock deck around in Standard, if Reno Warlock even sees play, which I find likely.
 
alright I have a legit question about this list:

syWILPh.png


Now the question -1 Owl for +1 Shadowflame or is double Owl better? I've been running the Flame list for a bit but I've kind of been missing the second Silence for the flexibility. Honestly what would you nerds run?

EDIT:

cards that are going to be nerfed: Druid (either Savage Roar or FoN though arguments stand for AoL or Keeper), Knife Juggler, Leper, Alex, Molten and Mountain, Doomhammer, Archmage, and Alex. But that's pretty much my short-list of what should be nerfed.

EDIT 2:

if Giants get the nerf the BGH is also getting nerfed

EDIT 3:

I've actually considered cutting Emperor from this list, as it doesn't actually DO anything.
 
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Matthew said:
alright I have a legit question about this list:

syWILPh.png


Now the question -1 Owl for +1 Shadowflame or is double Owl better? I've been running the Flame list for a bit but I've kind of been missing the second Silence for the flexibility. Honestly what would you nerds run?

EDIT:

cards that are going to be nerfed: Druid (either Savage Roar or FoN though arguments stand for AoL or Keeper), Knife Juggler, Leper, Alex, Molten and Mountain, Doomhammer, Archmage, and Alex. But that's pretty much my short-list of what should be nerfed.

EDIT 2:

if Giants get the nerf the BGH is also getting nerfed

EDIT 3:

I've actually considered cutting Emperor from this list, as it doesn't actually DO anything.
Click to expand...


Emperor is there because it's a heavy impact 6 drop that lowers the cost of your hand by 1. Your hand is big ergo you get a lot of value.

I like -1 Owl +1 Shadowflame. I think you want a shadowflame in there somewhere, maybe even over a hellfire.

No sylvanas?

I hope archmage gets nerfed, i've pulled two of them so far. http://puu.sh/nehly/7985a41a60.jpg

I'm expecting Savage Roar to get nerfed so you get no dust. Juggler is probably getting a stat dropped, 2/2 juggler is actually very reasonable. Leper to 1 damage sounds fine. Alex to a higher hp number is actually even better for me, stronger healing for all the control i play. Molten's 100% getting nerfed, it's just too strong for them to let it pass by unscathed. I'm not sure how you nerf Doomhammer reasonably because the only shaman variant I play is Bloodlust. Just give Antonidas lower attack or if you wanted to be mean raise it's cost by one mana. I'm also expecting some form of silence to get nerfed based on how much they hate it. I don't actually understand why BGH would get nerfed, what's wrong with it? If you wanted to nerf it though you'd just raise it's cost by one but it'd still be fine because it's a late-game card. I really can't imagine what else would be nerfed though/
 
Yeah you're missing the point though. Handlock already cheats mana and turn six is already a tap 4-drop turn, taunt, or Mountain turn so Emperor doesn't actually do anything other than maybe allow me to Jaraxxus and Inferno.

No room for sylvanas on top of that

BGH is just not fun. There's no reason my bigboys should die to this tech drop that only exists because giants can cheat mana. Not only that BGH loses no stats compared to other 3 drops and kills most cards that cost 7+. BGH isn't the sole reason that aggro is played more than control, but it certainly is a contributing factor. If BGH was five or six mana with stats the same as Harrison or TBK then I wouldn't complain, but for what it does at its mana cost and it's stats it's over the top
 
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BGH is unfun though it is more or less necessary, like without it secret paladin would be even more fucking stupid albeit this is for standard but stilll, and additionally while it's an insane card, this is probably one of the worse metas to run it in, like it still has tons of targets but with stuff like zoo being everywheere which unless it's sea giants/boom it doesn't have any targets, there's murloc pally which isn't too common but doesn't run any targets afaik, tempo mage boom/rag is getting more common though not guaranteed, handlock is veryuncommon on ladder and not very common in tournaments thought it's seen a bit of a resurgence in the championships with like 3 people running it and that's only on stream(are you guys watching that by the way?). I personally don't agree with mountain giant being nerfed considering that iirc some handlocks cut the giants all together but I'm not entirely sure that might have been renolock or something lol, it is just so unbelievably slow and the meta. The card is terrific though I don't think it's worthy of a nerf. On the other hand divine favor is so fucking stupid, call me r/hearthstone but it just isn't fair, oh yeah I have card advantage vs a deck that just dumps their hand and goes face and with a good divine favor pretty much never runs out of steam(eboladin) and sometimes secret pally runs it but not very much afaik as I don't play secret paladin(or eboladin lol). Leper Gnome is kind of eh, it does a lot for a one drop but it isn't really in any top tier deck afaik atm so it might be hard to justify. Archmage is unfair but imo not ridiculous enough to justify a nerf, at least in freeze mage, in mech mage it and goblin blastmage pretty much singlehandedly make the deck not total trash, still pretty trash but not totally trash. I'm 99% sure that fon will not get nerfed, like savage roar is the obvious culprit albeit less sticky minions hurt the card but still it is insane.

Also since I started right around BRM am I the only one that thought that combo sucked when I started watching tournaments? I was like, "why do a 14 damage combo when I can do 30+ damage with patron?" Obviously I had no idea what I was doing and didn't ever really experience much midrange druid previously.

Also Matthew your handlock is pretty cool, maybe try running sense demons idk, amnesiasc has been running it, (I think he's playing demon handlock in the championships but idk if he's playing sense demons) and iirc he ran doomguards. I'm not an avid handlock player since I don't have the cards for it but that's just my 2 cents.
 
Personally I'd tell you to stop trying to cheat aggro matchups and running so much other stupid big shit alongside your giants (i.e. don't run Boom). Handlock generally already beats other control decks by having a built-in cardless draw engine, playing undercosted big dudes and if all else fails converting their hero power to pumping out more severely undercosted big dudes. This also includes playing BGH because fucking hell you already play the most big dudes anyway, and play them the fastest to boot bar godly Druid draws, if you need to kill big dudes then run your shit into theirs. I don't think Emperor does enough either but the Jaraxxus-Inferno thing is really nice. That's three cards. You could also just drop an Argus like many do... I like having both but it is admittedly often clunky.

RE Standard inc: I see absolutely no reason why Savage Roar would be nerfed (or trees). It's an incredibly fair card, the combo is incredibly fair. Grom does 10-12 with an activator, Pyroblast does 10 within a single card... double Fireball is 13 with Hero Power, etc. For the smartass in me, Leeroy + Faceless is 12 from two class-neutral cards. Druid's burst is nothing special at all.

Druid's unfairness stems from their ramp, though I don't see them toning that down any (Innervate is ruined if you drop it to +1 mana, Growth has a very limited T2-T4 window of effective use). The only "problem" is that every successful Druid deck relies on it as a finisher, which itself isn't a problem unless you demand diversity for the sake of diversity. Rather, it's a symptom of Druid's inability to remove big minions. Presumably that's the balancing mechanism behind giving Druids mana ramping, as they're expected to play big dudes first and roll from the tempo advantage but that doesn't work in practice.

It goes something like this: Druid spends entire turn playing big guy. Warrior spend 1 mana to remove it and plays his own big guy to flip the board. Druid spends entire next turn playing big guy but can't remove Warrior's, then Warrior puts him even futher behind and it's GG. Because Druid simply doesn't have viable removal options, Naturalize..., they can't play the long game like Warrior, Priest, Paladin, arguably even Mage can. (Warlock too but Jaraxxus is sort of the ultimate trump card.) The heaviest they get is a high-end "midrange" that ultimately still attempts to mash face to death rather than grind the opponent out of resources.

At any rate, I expect no changes at all. I don't think anything needs to be changed, but just as much I expect Blizzard to bide their time as usual and see what shakes out in the new environment, and next expansion, before making any balance changes to Classic cards.
 
Druid combo doesn't just deal 14 damage, but I agree that the combo isn't "unfair" and probably doesn't strictly need a nerf. But if no Druid nerfs come, there will only ever be one druid deck ever, as all of its best cards are in the classic set. This wouldn't be gamebreaking; it would just be boring, and I'd expect Blizzard to preemptively break the "classic cards only" Druid deck.

As far as other nerfs go, Knife Juggler and Leper Gnome have been oppressive 5ever, and add little depth to the gameplay or the deckbuilding process.
 
Well the whole 14 damage thing isn't unfair, but when 9 mana deal 14 damage is the worst case scenario and you have to consistently control the board even if they don't have combo in hand isn't fair. The comparison to gromm is a valid comparison though you can't have two gromms in a deck so the consistency goes down (although warrior has a lot better survivability, so I suppose it's debatable). The whole unfair thing comes when you have super sticky minions eg shredder and things like shade make the combo all that much more threatening, like if you get t3 shade and don't attack until t9 and dont die it is like 24 damage, which obviously isn't fair in the slightest. We might have to wait until after shade and shredder leave in order to evaluate if combo is truly op since most of the things that make it so good are sticky minions. And Knife Juggler hasn't really been as oppressive as one might thing considering how it's not an auto include in aggro decks anymore, btw I find it really hard to understand why people use flame juggler over it like if you proc knife juggler only once you get pretty much equal value, and it can easily snowball out of control. But yeah combo is really really really really really really good and might be broken but we'll have to wait and see. Also it doesn't even have to be op considering it's not fun to lose to combo in the slightest, something blizzard doesn't like. And also obviously they hate charge which might affect their decision.
 
So if you play a turn 3 shade and don't attack with it until turn 9 you have inevitability sure, but losing your turn 3 has drastic effects that add up on each following turn. Combo might be efficient, but for the mana ramp class to be more efficient in any way than something else really gives it priority over strategies and neutral cards. Midrange with burst that depends on pressure with sticky boards is probably always going to exist in this game, whether it needs to be paced like midrange hunter, druid or secret pally is a meta call. I think it should get changed to promote flexibility, it's been said that druid has a strong core of classic cards and I share that sentiment, but I don't really think combo is unfair or unfun either

Mentioning sticky minions makes me think, though. When naxx first came out I was kind of devastated by the slew of sticky deathrattle minions, because that's pretty clearly something that's going to be preferable. But after a week or so I realized that I really liked that decision to double down, recognizing what kind of cards are good and printing a lot of different types of them, making the removal game a lot more interesting. When we'd later get shredder, the removal game got even cooler because you didn't know what type of removal would be best to use on the baby, and RNG or not I'd like to see more cards like that in this game. It's going to be really weird seeing how they fill that void.
 
Mr.E I know you don't want anything to be nerfed but Blizzard has already stated that Jugglar, Leper Gnome, and some aspect of Druid is under review.

Anyway I've edited my list:
wGX0fgU.png


I cut Emperor a while ago so I could have my second owl back, but I took your suggestions Mr.E and removed some of the bullshit that was unnecessary (Boom, BGH) and was able to add two Gang Bosses which a) helps my Void Callers get a little more consistent value and b) Helps against burst decks (Shaman). It honestly feels stronger than my previous incarnation but that might just be a placebo effect and I'm just playing better with it. I'm not sure either way.
 
Under review doesn't mean they're nerfing anything. If anything Druid gets nerfed anyway it'll be for the sake of diversifying Druid decklists and not because it does anything too powerful. Don't even need nerfed, just give them some hard removal on par with Execute, Shadow Word: Death, etc. and Druids will actually be able to play control instead of only "heavy midrange" (or aggro).

Considering what happened to Buzzard/Unleash, not mentioning that something is "under review" doesn't mean they're not nerfing something either.
 
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