Hearthstone

[Weeks]

I originally thought it became bad due to all the dragons leaving standard, but Drakonid Operative is still good. Apparently it's favored against Quest Rogue, which is probably why Dog ran it...I should watch that tourney

[Eebster the Great]

Kalimos, Blazecaller and Fire Elemental are all basically tempo cards not value ones (assuming you use Kalimos to clear). Servant is value. The only decks I can think of that would go to Fatigue would be some sort of miracle priest deck and they're going to wreck you with Shadow Visions->Un'goro pack or Lyra if the game goes that long.

My understanding of "value" is "effect per card" and tempo is "effect per mana cost." So Pyros is a high value, low tempo card, while Humongous Razorleaf + Silence is a high tempo, low value combo. In that sense, Blazecaller has worse tempo than Fire Elemental but better value. Servant of Kalimos is pretty high value (definitely better than Stonehill Defender, I would argue), but not always. If you don't get the elemental synergy, it is bad tempo and bad value. If all you discover is Air Elemental, Magma Rager, and Dust Devil, it's just bad. Kalimos, however, is guaranteed value if you get the synergy, often better value than Onyxia.

[Chen]

Generally tempo is spending cards/resources to strengthen your board position. Value generally is building resources; not necessarily at the cost of board position but it usually does come down to that. Most card draw are value plays since drawing cards tends to slow down how well you can fight the board. Cards that produce other cards tend to be categorized as value cards, compared to ones that fight the board which tend to fall under tempo. Clearly there's overlap and the definitions aren't firm. When you talk about "out valuing" a deck it tends to mean running them out of resources while you keep building them.

[Eebster the Great]

Generally tempo is spending cards/resources to strengthen your board position. Value generally is building resources; not necessarily at the cost of board position but it usually does come down to that. Most card draw are value plays since drawing cards tends to slow down how well you can fight the board. Cards that produce other cards tend to be categorized as value cards, compared to ones that fight the board which tend to fall under tempo. Clearly there's overlap and the definitions aren't firm. When you talk about "out valuing" a deck it tends to mean running them out of resources while you keep building them.

That seems to be exactly equal to what I said. Mana is a renewable resource, and cards are not. Cards that give a lot of value are "value cards". Cards that can be played early--i.e. low mana cost cards--are tempo cards. In long matches, you want more value, because you will have plenty of mana. In short matches, you want more tempo, because you will have plenty of cards. Cards and mana are pretty much the only real resources in Hearthstone.

[SDK]

And your life total! That's a resource too.

You're both pretty much saying the same thing, but Chen, I think drawing the line between tempo and value in terms of board position is flawed. Flamestrike is definitely a value card. It can also gain you tempo, and that's often what you're hoping to do (catch-up from all your lost tempo prior to turn 7), but knocking out three or four of their cards with one of yours is clearly card advantage (what value is, at heart). Cards vs. mana is a much cleaner line to draw, and makes it more obvious when you're behind in one, the other, or both.

[Weeks]

Emotes are the fourth resource. I greeeet youuuu. I greeeet youuuu.

[Eebster the Great]

Emotes are the fourth resource. I greeeet youuuu. I greeeet youuuu.

That's also the main reason to play Mayor Noggenfogger. JARAXXUS IS . . . sorry.

Unfortunately, Squelch is completely broken and stops all emotes. Brode pls nerf.

[mosc]

I originally thought it became bad due to all the dragons leaving standard, but Drakonid Operative is still good. Apparently it's favored against Quest Rogue, which is probably why Dog ran it...I should watch that tourney

I use dragon priest in wild when I get a priest quest. Zoo and pirates are not fast enough to deal with it and it has enough pressure to out-muscle a control deck too. You can still get games where dragons don't show up or you get no early game against aggro but it has at least decent matchups against anything in wild.

I've seen standard dragon priest, I don't think it's that good. It uses 4 epics from the latest set though which I think scares a lot of people off.

[Chen]

I've seen standard dragon priest, I don't think it's that good. It uses 4 epics from the latest set though which I think scares a lot of people off.

I assume the epics are the 2 Shadow Visions and 2 Primordial Drake. The drake is neutral though and a great card in many decks. Shadow Visions is also fantastic but I'll grant much more limited since Priest is still not the most popular class. I still haven't crafted them even though they'd be a big deal for my inner fire priest deck. I don't play it enough to be worth the 800 dust and I'm still opening Un'goro packs so I'll give it some time I think.

[Weeks]

You could also change one primordial for Ysera. Which is a legendary! But one I hold dear as the first I crafted.

My Un'Goro packs have been pretty meh. I got a bunch of Warrior cards, the class I don't play! I don't even have the quest, or any warrior legendary, or even a second Brawl.

[Weeks]

A rogue arena deck I'm not sure about.

Spoiler:

Note the massive peak at 3. I wanted to practice my rogue, maybe watch some pro players do a rogue arena to see if I can catch anything I wouldn't see at first glance. I kind of don't wanna mess up what is apparently the second best arena class, and I recently had the displeasure of retiring a horrible shaman arena deck.

edit: As a highlight: I got offered about 5 servants of kalimos. I felt so awful. :(

[SDK]

That is a solid deck. 3-drops are the new 2-drops. 2-drops used to be extremely important in Arena - I was happy if I had 6-8 of them. I'm finding more and more that that's completely unnecessary in the new meta. Proof:

Spoiler:

12-1 Rogue

1 Backstab

1 Bladed Cultist
1 Glacial Shard
1 Hallucination
1 Swashburgler

1 Envenom Weapon
1 Fan of Knives
1 Igneous Elemental
3 Shadow Strike
1 SI:7 Agent
1 Silithid Swarmer
1 Stonehill Defender
2 Tar Creeper
1 Thunder Lizard

1 Fire Plume Phoenix
1 Obsidian Shard

1 Assassin's Blade
1 Servant of Kalimos

1 Big-Time Racketeer
1 Corrupted Seer
1 Frozen Crusher
1 Thistle Tea

1 Hogger
2 Primordial Drake
1 Ozruk
1 Ultrasaur


Curve
0: 1
1: 4
2: 0
3: 12
4: 2
5: 2
6: 4
7+: 5

Looks a lot like yours, actually! Just ran this a couple of days ago. The spike at 3 seems crazy, but take a closer look at what you've got there. How many of those cards are you actually going to play turn 3? Maybe 6 of them? That's not so bad. The rest are reactionary and give great value for little mana. That's exactly what you want, 3-drops that can take down 5 and 6 drops in the late game. As it happens, that's exactly what you've got here.

The meta is so shifted to control now that 2-drops are useless. I've played many arena runs since Un'Goro was released, and I've always done poorly when I try to have a nice spike at 2. They're just not high value enough, you will lose the late game. My last three or four runs have been more like this, including an 11-3 run with Warlock with just two 2-drops. The above is an extreme example (I'm not saying you should aim to have zero 2-drops), but there is no longer a need for early game tempo. Pick it up in the midgame and you'll be better off.

PS: This is also helped by Rogue and Warlock hero powers being the best Turn 2 plays (with only Paladin really coming close otherwise - you may need to shore up the early game a bit more with other classes).

[Weeks]

That's reassuring, now I don't feel so bad about the draft. I feel worse about potentially botching it though...I'll run it over the weekend I guess. I've been playing the brawl in the meantime, kind of relearning the basics again. Can't hurt.

[SDK]

Just take it slow and use your cards wisely. That's the key for Rogue.

So... I opened a golden Lysa (sorry, Weeks! ) and an Elise Trailblazer back-to-back yesterday. Thought I'd try building Combo Priest. I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, but just won my first game on turn 5 with a gigantic Tar Creeper, so I guess I must be doing something right!

EDIT: Teehee, game 2 win on turn 7 with a 28/28! I think I like this deck!

[Weeks]

You're tearing me apart Lysa! I would've dusted a golden Lyra though. I dust all golden cards for loads of money.

[SDK]

I play enough Arena that dust is not usually a problem. Still got a golden Gruul from way back that I would dust first if I ever need to. I'm getting low now though - I think I've spent about 5000 dust on Un'Goro alone!

EDIT: Uh, right, Lyra. Been watching too much Game of Thrones maybe.

This deck is good. Started playing Ranked after a couple trial runs on casual. Still catching myself making mistakes, but I'm learning. Despite that, I'm sitting at Rank 6 with maybe a 85% winrate from Rank 10? I don't like the feeling of sitting there with an empty hand (which happens if they answer your first few threats), but I think that can be managed somewhat if I played my minions smarter. Apart from that, if you draw well, this deck is fantastic.

By the way, Weeks, not sure what you ended up doing with that Lyra, but I'm convinced that Elise is not necessary for this deck. You could build it relatively cheap and it would be just as good as the version I'm playing.

[SDK]

Teehee!

[Weeks]

I actually got bored of the combo deck, so I made the dragon priest Dog ran in Dreamhack except with Lyra over Elise. I've only done Hunter on ladder though.

[SDK]

I did it! Finally! After way too many attempts, I finally made 12 wins with Warlock, just two runs after Weeks watched as I failed twice to take down the final boss in my previous 11-3 Warlock attempt.

7 down, 2 to go.

Spoiler:

12-2 Warlock

1 Fire Fly
1 Worgen Infiltrator

1 Acidic Slime
1 Demonfire
1 Murloc Tidehunter
1 Rockpool Hunter
1 Youthful Brewmaster

1 Chittering Tunneller
1 Harvest Golem
1 Igneous Elemental
1 Vicious Fledgling
1 Violet Illusionist

1 Gentle Megasaur
1 Hellfire
1 Hozen Healer
2 Kabal Chemist
1 Shadowflame
1 Stegodon

1 Abomination
1 Bomb Lobber
2 Servant of Kalimos
1 Silver Hand Knight

2 Fellfire Potion
2 Kabal Trafficker
1 Siphon Soul

1 Sea Giant


Curve
1: 2
2: 5
3: 5
4: 7
5: 5
6: 5
7+: 1

The 6-drops made this deck. Good sweepers and decent midrange power let me finish the game after keeping tempo early on. The two losses were to Hunter. What this deck really struggled with was taking control back quickly after losing board control. If my opponent fought me for the early game, I could take the board back, but it usually required more time and life than I had the luxury for (especially when facing off against Hunter's hero power). Lifegain is hard to come by these days, but Kabal Chemist handing me a Greater Healing Potion definitely won a couple games that I would have lost otherwise.

Weeks, have you played your Rogue run yet with that list you shared? How did it go?

[kalira]

IMG_3168.PNG

Teehee!

um. wat.

[SDK]

IMG_3168.PNG

Teehee!

um. wat.

You like that? That's the combo in the Priest deck I'm currently playing. Play Divine Spirit (or two or three) to double (or quadruple or octuple) a minion's health, then play Inner Fire to make its attack equal to its defense. It's a solid deck, way more consistent than you'd expect thanks to Shadow Visions.

Are you still playing, kalira? I haven't seen you online. How's it going in the world of HearthStone?

By the way, I meant to say after your last post that you really don't have to spend money on this game at all. I personally have spent a grand total of $7 when I used part of an iTunes gift card to buy one wing of one of the adventures. It takes a while to get all the good cards, but the ranking system Hearthstone uses works great for all levels of players, so if you're patient and don't care about being the best in the world in your first year of playing, you can easily play for free.

[Ginger]

Just posting to say that I'm terrible at Hearthstone. Even the computer gives me a difficult time, especially priests. Speaking of priests does anybody know how to get Tyrande Whisperwind? I heard that it was no longer possible or something.

[SDK]

Just posting to say that I'm terrible at Hearthstone. Even the computer gives me a difficult time, especially priests. Speaking of priests does anybody know how to get Tyrande Whisperwind? I heard that it was no longer possible or something.

Hi Ginger. You're right, it's no longer possible. It was a promotion for Twitch Prime a while back. She is a lot cooler than Anduin.

[SDK]

I like to post all my 12 win decks, and since this thread is alive again, I'll post them here. If seeing a good arena deck helps you build your own, great! If not, that's okay, I'll just revel in my glory every now and then by reading past posts.

Spoiler:

12-2 Paladin

1 Fire Fly
1 Hand of Protection
1 Lost in the Jungle
1 Smuggler's Run

1 Argent Protector
1 Bilefin Tidehunter
1 Volatile Elemental
1 Wild Pyromancer

1 Arcane Golem
1 Giant Wasp
1 Gluttonous Ooze
1 Harvest Golem
1 Tar Creeper
1 Violet Illusionist

1 Aberrant Berserker
1 Daring Reporter
1 Hammer of Wrath
1 Kooky Chemist
1 Midnight Drake
1 Violet Teacher

1 Psycho-o-Tron
1 Spiked Hogrider
1 Stampeding Kodo

1 Big-Time Racketeer
2 Spikeridged Steed

1 Bog Creeper
1 Charged Devilsaur
1 Dinosize
1 Sea Giant


Curve
1: 4
2: 4
3: 6
4: 6
5: 3
6: 3
7+: 4

Normally I wouldn't go for so many 1-drops, but Fire Fly and Lost in the Jungle are among the better ones out there (especially when I've got a Sea Giant in hand). Granting Divine Shield is quite a bit better than it used to be (and it used to be awesome) thanks to all the poisonous minions running around - Hand of Protection and Argent Protector saved me a couple times there. But let's be honest, Spikeridged Steed and Dinosize won me these games. Those cards are both ridiculous.

[Weeks]

Weeks, have you played your Rogue run yet with that list you shared? How did it go?

I fucked up a couple of games and ended 3-3. lel

I then drafted a Mage and went 5-3. I don't recall any horrible misplays on my part in that run, I just didn't have very high minion quality. I relied on one Pyroblast to close out 3 games.

Now I have a kind of cool looking Priest draft that I'll take more seriously

[SDK]

Minions are important, even for mage. Speaking of which...

Spoiler:

12-1 Mage

1 Babbling Book

1 Blowgill Sniper
2 Flame Geyser
1 Pompous Thespian
1 Primordial Glyph
1 Shimmering Tempest

1 Earthen Ring Farseer
1 Eggnapper
1 Jungle Panther
1 Manic Soulcaster
1 Stonehill Defender
1 Tar Creeper
1 Vicious Fledgling
1 Volcanic Potion

1 Aberrant Berserker
1 Barnes
1 Chillwind Yeti
1 Fireball
2 Polymorph
1 Steam Surger
1 Tol'vir Stoneshaper

1 Streetwise Investigator

2 Big-Time Racketeer
1 Blizzard

1 Stormwatcher
1 Charged Devilsaur
1 Primordial Drake



Curve
1: 1
2: 6
3: 8
4: 8
5: 1
6: 3
7+: 3

Great removal to back up a bit more of an aggressive plan. Solid high end minions to finish the deal. This deck was fantastic - not really even close to losing any of my games (except against that one bastard Priest who beat me at 9 wins!). I just threw up a board presence and won before most decks could get their defenses through my removal.

Good luck with your Priest run!

[Eebster the Great]

I'm thinking about making an Evolve Shaman deck, since I have most of the pieces, it looks pretty fun, and it seems to be having some success. The thing is, I don't have Aya or Patches, and I only really have enough dust for one or the other. I've seen lists with both or with just one or the other, but the question is really which will give me more value in the long run. Since I have Edwin already for some potential Rogue decks in the future, is Patches the way to go? Or are pirates on the way out anyway?

I also just opened Al'Akir, which is cool and thematic for my elemental deck . . . but it's just not that great a card. I don't want to dust a classic legendary, though. It seems like it could theoretically work into an evolve deck, since you can attack twice before immediately evolving into a higher stat minion, but it's hard to believe it would actually be worth inclusion, all things considered.

Also worth considering I suppose is that I have Bloodmage Thalnos, so maybe that would make Jade Lightning (and thus Aya) very slightly more valuable.

[Weeks]

Patches is stronger for Aggro, Aya is stronger for midrange. I'd go with what playstyle I enjoy more (in my case midrange, but only slightly). Also whether or not I want to deal with the possibility of Golakka Crawler in their deck (in my case, yeah no thanks, I'd rather play Golakka Crawler myself)

[mosc]

Aya is no longer that useful to druid (jade is dieing) and jade rogue is a joke. Patches meanwhile is making all kinds of appearances thanks to combo-ing so nicely even with just bloodsail corsair. Shaman holds onto it's jade mostly because there just isn't much else. I don't think it'll last until it rotates out. Patches is going to have another 9 months of glory.

No question I'd pick patches.

[Eebster the Great]

Aya is no longer that useful to druid (jade is dieing) and jade rogue is a joke. Patches meanwhile is making all kinds of appearances thanks to combo-ing so nicely even with just bloodsail corsair. Shaman holds onto it's jade mostly because there just isn't much else. I don't think it'll last until it rotates out. Patches is going to have another 9 months of glory.

No question I'd pick patches.

Thanks

[Weeks]

you're welcome

[SDK]

Yarr! I'm in charge now!

Spoiler:

12-1 Rogue
1 Counterfeit Coin

1 Journey Below

1 Betrayal
1 Eviscerate
1 Pompous Thespian
1 Sap

1 Edwin Van Cleef
1 Envenom Weapon
1 Harvest Golem
1 Questing Adventurer
2 SI:7 Agent

1 Defender of Argus
1 Kooky Chemist
2 Obsidian Shard
1 Tanaris Hogchopper
1 Xaril, Poisoned Mind

1 Assassinate
1 Captain Greenskin
1 Cult Apothecary
1 Nesting Roc
1 Vilespine Slayer

1 Argent Commander
1 Big-Time Racketeer
1 Boulderfist Ogre
1 Defias Cleaner
1 Luckydo Buccaneer
1 Sunwalker

1 Sated Threshadon

Curve
0: 1
1: 1
2: 4
3: 6
4: 6
5: 5
6: 6
7+: 1

Not much of a curve here, exactly. Too many six drops, and they did sometimes cause me problems later in the game when my hand started getting clogged up. Won this run on the back of solid removal and good quality midgame cards. With Edwin, Questing Adventurer and Xaril I sometimes felt like I was playing Miracle Rogue in standard!

By the way, the only reason Counterfeit Coin is in this deck is because of the large number of Combo cards I have. I wanted to make sure I could set them off reliably, especially the Agents who were often needed to get me to the midgame alive. Finished off the final boss at 11 wins with only 1 health remaining. Thanks, Sunwalker!

[SDK]

8 down, 1 to go.

Spoiler:

12-2 Druid

1 Naturalize
1 Worgen Infiltrator

1 Dire Wolf Alpha
1 Power of the Wild
3 Tortollan Forager
1 Wrath

1 Celestial Dreamer
1 Eggnapper
1 Violet Illusionist

1 Cult Master
1 Daring Reporter
1 Dark Iron Dwarf
1 Kooky Chemist
1 Polluted Hoarder
1 Shellshifter

1 Druid of the Claw
1 Lunar Visions
1 Second-Rate Bruiser
1 Virmen Sensei

1 Big-Time Racketeer
1 Corrupted Seer
2 Defias Cleaner
1 Frozen Crusher
1 Scaled Nightmare

1 Bog Creeper
1 Sated Threshadon
1 Sea Giant

Curve
1: 2
2: 6
3: 3
4: 6
5: 4
6: 6
7+: 3

Tortollan Forager is probably the best Druid card in Arena right now. Better than Swipe? I think it might be. It's so good both in the early game (where it fills in your 2-drops nicely since we don't want many of those these days) and the late game (where the 5-power minions they're feeding you can get to work). Druid so often has the problem that it can't compete with the higher tier decks. Several times while trying for my 12 win goal I've gone 7, 8 or 9 wins without a loss, then lose 3 games in the face of better removal. This deck was able to fight through that with good quality minions that needed answers throughout the game. The Forager was key in making that happen.

Good curve, solid minions, this was a great deck. Able to maintain a board presence throughout the game and eventually drowning the opponent in card advantage. Pretty sure that's the only way to play Druid successfully.

EDIT: Wow, looking back I've gone 12 wins five times in the last month. I don't usually play enough to qualify for the top 100 list (you need 30 games in the season), but I wonder if I'll make it on this time around. I don't usually track my games, so I'm not sure where I'm at on average for June (or how many games I've actually played).

[Weeks]

Dragon Priest is the best thing in Hearthstone and I'm glad I can play (a weird version of it) it occasionally.

[Eebster the Great]

So I (implausibly) won a local tournament in my area (apparently they're called "Fireside Gathering Tavern Hero Qualifiers") and qualified for the "2017 Americas Summer Tavern Hero Tournament," an event organized by Blizzard. It's my first time competing in any tournament for any game of any sort since I lost my first match in a middle school chess tournament twelve years ago. I knew this was a feeder for a bigger tournament going in, but I wasn't even notified of the day (or week) of the bigger tournament until yesterday (Jul 31/Aug 1), about 4.5 days before the start. I know Blizzard tends to get behind schedule, but that still seems damn late. Even if I do manage to win my first couple of matches, I will have to concede, as I already scheduled a tutoring session the same day. Thanks, Blizzard.

For those curious, I won the tournament held at Level Two Games in Avon, Ohio. I have an embarrassing and offensive handle that I apparently can't change that I created back when your chosen username was totally independent of the original username you chose. The only reason I even won the tournament was the Conquest format and the fact that I brought four aggro decks (or technically three aggro decks plus secret mage, which I guess is more midrangey, but people tend to ban mage anyway). They were the only ones I could afford.

[SDK]

Congrats on the win! That's cool. I know you couldn't finish it anyway, but how did you end up doing?

[Eebster the Great]

I pulled a Toast and overslept.

[Weeks]

I pulled a Toast and overslept.

Classic

I haven't been playing Hearthstone much but I'll probably grind some packs in Arena for the new expansion. What seems to be broken?

[mosc]

New expansion adds pretty substantial endgame to all the classes as well as massive anti-aggro. They seem to have put a lot of thought into making hunter/shaman on the slower side of midrange and everything else even more ponderous. Solid AOE added, basically no aggressive minions.

Hearthstone got a lot slower and requires higher arcane dust budgets to be competitive than it did before this epansion.

[Trebla]

Frozen Throne has renewed my interest more than any other expansion I think. I like that the meta has mostly slowed down... maybe 20% of my matches (around rank 10) are against aggro decks. Control Reno-style priest deck has been the most fun deck I've played since Naxx.