Hearthstone [IRC Channel #Skillstone]

God I really hate Hunter decks, particularly the face variants. It's seems so dumb to me that a deck can completely ignore anything you have on the field but YOU have to clear or you'll just die faster... At least Miracle Rogue and Zoolock ten to try to keep your board clear, or at least small. Had a game earlier as Druid where I played two Druid of the Claw, Defender of Argus (iirc it made two taunts), and Cenarius with the two treants and still lost since I couldn't really retaliate after clearing. Probably my least favorite deck to play against. (playing AS it, on the other hand...)

On an only slightly related topic, this is the deck I've been using lately on the ladder:


I'm currently sitting at around 400 dust so I can make at least one epic, but I don't think I have enough extra cards atm to disenchant for a legendary. Should I go for a second Ancient of Lore now, or wait until I can get enough dust to craft another legendary? I think Bloodmage Thalnos and Alexstraza are the only two legendaries left that I'd use in this deck and they'd be good for several other decks I have on the side as well, but the AoL would be a bigger boost for this deck alone than Thalnos (and arguably Alex).
 

Matthew

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God I really hate Hunter decks, particularly the face variants. It's seems so dumb to me that a deck can completely ignore anything you have on the field but YOU have to clear or you'll just die faster... At least Miracle Rogue and Zoolock ten to try to keep your board clear, or at least small. Had a game earlier as Druid where I played two Druid of the Claw, Defender of Argus (iirc it made two taunts), and Cenarius with the two treants and still lost since I couldn't really retaliate after clearing. Probably my least favorite deck to play against. (playing AS it, on the other hand...)

On an only slightly related topic, this is the deck I've been using lately on the ladder:


I'm currently sitting at around 400 dust so I can make at least one epic, but I don't think I have enough extra cards atm to disenchant for a legendary. Should I go for a second Ancient of Lore now, or wait until I can get enough dust to craft another legendary? I think Bloodmage Thalnos and Alexstraza are the only two legendaries left that I'd use in this deck and they'd be good for several other decks I have on the side as well, but the AoL would be a bigger boost for this deck alone than Thalnos (and arguably Alex).
If you're druid without 2 Ancient of Lores then you're not playing Druid just some gimp deck. Pick the second AoL and wait until you get your Ancient of Wars so you can start playing Ramp. Though you could play it regardless without the AoWs given you have the Sunwalkers.
 
playing a tournament tomorrow trying to decide what decks to use as im missing a lot of legendaries and cards to complete decks. here is what i have:



i assume its obvious but i also have low cost decks like hunter and zoo completed...i've personally had the most success with paladin so i think thats definitely one ill use but everything else has had good and bad days...you can obviously see the legends im missing for each deck but yep i honestly cant figure it out so hopefully you guys can help
 

Matthew

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Handlock without the Mountain Giant is useless. Run the shaman deck but optimize it a little bit. Rag and Ysera are terrible in a Shaman deck as is the Earth unless you use it specifically. If you have it add in Violet Teacher x 2 and Bloodlust in their place.

EDIT:

just saw Mountain. So used to seeing them at four. Handlock is your strongest deck then.

EDIT 2:

Just replace 1 Faceless with a Power Overwhelming.
 
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the handlock does have 2 mountain giant though

i do have 2 violet teachers ill test tonight to get a feel of it
 

Matthew

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Yeah sorry edited my previous post to fix that huge error. Sorry x)

On the other hand replace the Shadowbolt for PO if you don't feel that replacing the Faceless is necessary.

EDIT:

More optimized Handlock is:

Spells:
Soulfire x 2
Mortal Coil x 2
Power Overwhelming x 1
Shadowflame x 1
Hellfire x 2
Siphon Soul x 2

Minions:
Sunfury Protector x 2
Ancient Watcher x 2
Iron Beak Owl x 1
Earthen Ring Farseer x 2
Defender of Argus x 2
Leeroy x 1
Twilight Drake x 2
Faceless x 1
Alex x 1
Mountain Giant x 2
Molten Giant x 2

Last slot for cards is your call. Black Knight, Big Game, or another Owl all fit really nicely in the deck. (Or Jaraxxus if you have him). Either way it's one of the strongest decks in the meta only being (so, so much) hard countered by Shamans and Warrior control. kd24
 
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kd24 I would at least consider Hunter Aggro. Yes, the deck is retarded, but it absolutely just rolls over the sea of Miracle Rogue and Handlock in the current meta. I don't know how I would fit it in with your other decks as part of a tournament strategy though.

I'm still being lazy and not caring too much about climbing the ladder again yet. I might attempt it with my combo-less Priest build because I really like the Priest class but I hate the combo builds because, unlike, say, Paladin's Pyromancer / Equality / Consecration holy trinity, the cards aren't good on their own. Circle of Healing is downright garbage and Injured Blademaster is unremarkably average. Soulpriest is objectively good but she's too anti-synergistic with other, more important Priest cards: Northshire Cleric won't be drawing you anything and you effectively can't even cast Holy Nova or Holy Fire with it active.
Completely agree with this. I can't stand the way Priest is run and I don't buy into the "standard" combos that Priest decks have(Auchenai/CoH/Injured Blademaster). I think the reason why Priest "sucks" now is because it's been run the same way since closed beta and people feel like you HAVE to run Circle of Healing (absolute trash without the other two), Injured Blademaster (turn 3 it easily dies without CoH, turn 5 it's a slower Yeti. Meh) and Auchenai Soulpriest because the effects are so powerful when you do have all the pieces in hand. I generally see combos in card games this way: they need to have a powerful enough effect to literally win you the game, preferably immediately. Otherwise they're not worth running IMO. Getting ahead on board isn't enough. A slightly better Hellfire doesn't win you the game. Stuff like Leeroy + Shadowstep/Cold Blood/Rockbiter Weapon/Windfury or turn 9 Alexstrasza followed up by turn 10 Grommash + Whirlwind/Cruel Taskmaster does.

Speaking of Priest, I stopped playing it for a while because I was missing some late game legendaries, but after pulling a Sylvanas (not my first choice for Priest, but she's still powerful) and popping my first legendary craft on Ragnaros, I'm ready to get started again.

tl;dr IMO Priest can be good...if people stop running it like it's still BlizzCon 2013 meta ;/
 
If you're druid without 2 Ancient of Lores then you're not playing Druid just some gimp deck. Pick the second AoL and wait until you get your Ancient of Wars so you can start playing Ramp. Though you could play it regardless without the AoWs given you have the Sunwalkers.
Pretty sure the lack of a single AoL won't ruin the deck as badly as you're saying... Also I've never heard of Ramp Druid before, although now that I look at the deck kd24 posted, I think I've played against a couple. I'm missing quite a few cards from it, though (no Big Game Hunter, only one AoL, no Ancient of War, no Faceless Manipulator) so I'm not sure that's a deck I should try yet.
 

Mr.E

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People act like Ramp Druid is some super special deck of its own, when it's really it's just... a normal non-token Druid except with two Wild Growth in the place of what is usually Harvest Golem. Anyway, you really want those Ancient of Lore as a Druid player, plus it's just an Epic so it's relatively easy to craft.

On that note, konglernub should craft Ancient of War #2 for use over Ironbark and find room for Yeti #2. Yeti > Tazdingo if you must choose between them, though I play (two of) both in my list because I like maximizing my odds of having a four-drop in conjunction with T1/T2 Innervate or T2 Wild Growth. (I don't use Starfall.) Although he's already participated by now so I'm probably too late. :( Still, I like to talk.

Only reason I haven't started playing Paladin on the ladder is because I haven't gotten around to pulling/crafting Fordring myself, which is totally the most important card because he's the best minion in the game.

Rag and Ysera are terrible in a Shaman deck...
I don't see why that has to be the case. It's unusual but I'm not automatically convinced it's bad. Seems to me it would just play like old control Mages, except with more cheap burn and weapons, although I guess you're the expert... :P Far Sight.dec go poorly?
 
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Matthew

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Nah Farsight deck is fine but too much Leeroy Miracle and control Warrior. His is a more standard Shaman which will often never play those cards as they're too slow.
 

Reymedy

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I've faced Earth Elemental + Ancestral Spirit in tournaments and it's pretty brutal when you're not expecting it (I beat it with priest by coining the only Mind Control of my deck)
honnestly Ysera is meh in shaman, but Rag + Injured Blademasters + Ancestral Healing seems cool on paper
 

Soul Fly

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I suddenly don't like this game very much.

I little way up after grinding the ladder, It's literally hunter 80% of the time and they almost all run the same staple brainless auto-pilot deck. Even though it's pretty apparent half of them don't even know how to use it properly and almost all of them have copied it from the internet it's fucking tiring fighting hunter after hunter. And the worst part is half the time the deck succeeds even if the user has no fucking clue how to go about it.

This is forcing me to exclusively focus on board control decks (which I'm only good enough with mage) and include sub-optimal spells like Arcane Explosion (basically mini-flamestrike v/s Hunters) just to keep up, or bring a hunter deck of my own. The sad part is I can't even try out some of the good anti-meta decks out there thanks to my very small card collection with no legendaries and a few shitty epics.
seriously fuck everyone running that autopilot shit.

There's this certain Rogue deck I keep seeing again and again and it's just as annoying. IDK what it's called but relies heavily on Gadgetzaan Auctioneer and other card cycling techniques like Shadowstep. Shaping up to be the next hunter IMO.
 
Hunter isn't even that good anymore because Unleash costs 3. Like I really didn't think it would be a big deal when it was nerfed, but it's had a pretty tremendous impact on the class's viability. It's certainly still usable, but it's a lot easier to combat when your opponent either has to wait an extra turn to go crazy or can only afford two or three of buzzard/timber dog/hyena/other beasts to get more value out of buzzard/unleash.

The Rogue deck is called Miracle, which has been a thing for a long ass time now but for some reason only really rose up in popularity a few weeks ago. I guess a big part is that it's a deck that never struggled to keep up tempo against midrange hunter and had Sap for Houndmaster'd minions/Savannah Highmanes, making it one of the most reliable answers to the deck. Aggro hunter/burn mage both do well against it because they can dish out tons of damage without worrying too much about their board presence. I don't really see them nerfing any common Miracle cards, however. There are like three or four different Miracle variants with the only main commonalities being Gadgetzan/spells/staple minions such as SI:7 Agent and Thalnos. And if they nerf Gadgetzan, rip card draw have fun with fucking Loot Hoarder.
 

Matthew

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Just lost multiple games in a row due to my shitty internet. I'm a sad, sad man right now. Goodbye rank 4
 
the divine spirit+inner fire gimmick is the funnest shit to run imo, nothing like an OTK turtle (snapjaw + power word + divine x2 and inner fire, nice 36/36)

randuin wyrnn just isnt as fun a gimmick than that kind of shit, things like 10/10 northshires and 20/20 lightwells are within easy reach too

on a related note i was playing a somewhat serious priest deck and somehow my opp managed to let me get a 22 attack lightwarden, i mean sure i was blessed with the circlejerk of healing and holy nova and darkscale shenanigans but really he had plenty of opportunities to remove it, it was out for like 5 turns, he was just using his removal on other things.

i dont think lightwardens a bad card, worst case is its a 1 mana 1/2 which actually trades fairly well on average, and i think its really easy to get value from since it means that heals can buy you momentum in a bad spot, rather than remain a passive play. i find a lot of the time people have to spend more than 1 mana to deal with it. im not sure i'd run it out of priest (i guess shaman could be interesting, or paladin). power word shield makes it a lot better, since it can trade with more threatening things and then you can buff it further.
 

Soul Fly

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Okay I just got cockblocked out of a match with tempo and hand size in my favour by the same divine spirit x2 + inner fire bs. (he even managed to sneak in a divine shield with my Argent Protector he thoughtsteal'd)

I'm done playing Paladin until I get my hands on Equality (to combo with Consecration). It has no other way of reliably dealing with this shitty gimmick.
 
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Is Illidan useful in anything? Randomly got it out of a pack, but if it's generally useless 400 dust would help in making other stuff.
 
Well when you thin about it, Illidan is basically a stronger Violet Teacher, and Violet gets its fair share of use. From what I can tell its not a mainstay on any deck but its not unusable. I'd say the main difference is sets it back from Violet is that he's simply more threatening, so he's much more likely to be a removal target than a measly 3/5. But he does seem to get some use, mostly in handlock, token druid and some miracle rogues.
 

supermarth64

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He's not useful in much, the problem is with only 5 health at the 6 mana stage a bunch of stuff can trade with him. The reason why Violet Teacher's good is because at the 4 mana stage, the only viable cards that can kill Violet teacher in 1 shot are Ancient Brewmaster, King Mukla, and Leeroy. If you wanted a 6 mana card, the slot is much better for Argent Commander, Sylvanas, Cairne, Sunwalker, Black Knight, Highmane if you're Hunter or Fire Elemental if you're Shaman. Any more cards at the 6 mana cost would make your deck heavy at the top.

tl;dr disenchant but only if you're using the 400 dust for something immediately otherwise save it for when you need it.
 

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