Hearthstone

[CPA]

For anyone who cares to ask about which cards are good, just copy the popular decks and base your decisions on which cards are "good" on what you need for them. A bunch of enthusiasts (most of them well paid) spend all their time working that all out for us. Seems more sensible than considering any single card out of context.

https://tempostorm.com/articles/meta-snapshot-17-the-june-2015-season-is-underway

Looks like the best deck is quite cheap these days.

My head was spinning after reading some of that.

 

[Vivendi]

My head was spinning after reading some of that.

Lol. Here's another one, I like this one better:
http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/hearthstone/489589-pr-july-week-1-the-beginning-of-the-end

While I usually only play just enough games to finish my daily quest, I do like to build decks and I'm constantly changing them to try to make them better.

I've also just uploaded almost all of my current decks here.
Except two of these, these decks I've built myself trying out different cards and see which ones work well and I like. BUT, they're like 90% similar to decks you'll find on the website above because invariably some cards are just too good not to play and everyone ends up playing them.

Let me know if you want any suggestions on how to play any of these or possible replacement cards if you're missing some.

 

[Wardawg1001]

I've been playing for a while now. Have a pretty large collection of cards with several legendaries including Dr. Boom and Ragnaros, among others. I enjoy the game, but admittedly don't know much about the specific hand strategies that get thrown around, such as "handlock" and "zoo". Can someone list the strategies and a one or two line comment on how to build them, or direct me where to find a list?

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks

Just look through the top ranked decks for each class, you should be able to find all the popular ones. Usually there is a good description of the deck and how to play it as well.

 

[AgentUnknown]

Played a bit last night, losing streak 4 games on regular. Pulled out my dr boom and every single one had a counter for it. 2 owls, and a sheep. Every single time. Oh well. Dr boom is my end game. I will look at these decks and see.

In this game don't u want a lot of taunts?

 

[Fallen Kell]

In this game don't u want a lot of taunts?

Depends on your play style and character class. The object is to kill the enemy character before you die yourself. While taunts can help on the keeping yourself alive long enough to kill the enemy, taunts do not typically has as much offence as other cards. For example you can play on turn 6, you can play 2 wolf riders and get 6 immediate damage that turn, or you can play a 3/6+taunt or a 4/5+taunt+shield and do no damage that round, giving the opponent a chance to kill/nullify your taunt before it can even do any damage.

 

[Madia]

Played a bit last night, losing streak 4 games on regular. Pulled out my dr boom and every single one had a counter for it. 2 owls, and a sheep. Every single time. Oh well. Dr boom is my end game. I will look at these decks and see.

In this game don't u want a lot of taunts?

Taunts are best used to compliment a deck, not build one around. They're most useful to slow down an opponent but are very vulnerable to silence.

If Dr. Boom's you're finisher first try to flush out removals like Big Game Hunter, Hex, Shadow Word Death, etc. before playing him. You also might want to try to have another finisher so you don't have to rely solely on him. It's hard to just have one finisher. Usually you want two or three strong cards so you can play one to flush out the removals and then the better one for the situation. I've sacrificed Dr. Boom before so I can get out a card with a better win condition.

 

[Wardawg1001]

Taunts are best used to compliment a deck, not build one around. They're most useful to slow down an opponent but are very vulnerable to silence.

If Dr. Boom's you're finisher first try to flush out removals like Big Game Hunter, Hex, Shadow Word Death, etc. before playing him. You also might want to try to have another finisher so you don't have to rely solely on him. It's hard to just have one finisher. Usually you want two or three strong cards so you can play one to flush out the removals and then the better one for the situation. I've sacrificed Dr. Boom before so I can get out a card with a better win condition.

There's really only two decks that make use of heavy amounts of taunts. Ramp Druid (and there are a lot of variations of this deck, some of which use slightly less/more taunts, but I'm lumping them into the same category since they are roughly the same with a few minor tweaks.

And then there's Handlock, which makes use of Sunfury Protector (gives taunt to the minions adjacent to it) and Defender of Argus (same thing, but he also gives +1 atk/hp to each adjacent unit as well. Typically these are used on Twilight Drakes (which usually pop out as 4/8's or higher, due to Handlocks usually have a pretty full hand) and Mountain/Molten Giants. They often run 1-2 Sludge Belchers as well.

You'll see some of the more effective taunts sprinkled throughout decks (Sludge Belcher in particular), but the above decks are really the only high level decks with a heavy emphasis on taunts.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah, my ramp druid has a bunch of taunts (mainly because druid gets a lot of racial taunt cards/spells). Between the +2/+2+taunt spells, "+4 attack" or "+4 health+taunt" spells, you also have the 3/2 or 2/3+taunt minion, 4/4+charge or 4/6+taunt minions, the 5/5+healing or 5/10+taunt minion, and of course the 8/8+taunts minions.

I personally love my druid deck, it is one of my favorites and it is also one I do not lose very often in. The only thing mine lacks is a bit of AoE (I have been debating cutting a card to fit in the 4 damage +1 damage all enemy spells, but just can't really find room... I mean I "could" drop deathwing, but I have actually gotten many wins because of him as almost nobody expects deathwing, and if you play him properly (i.e. I have the wonder twins in my deck) you will get some extra deathrattle transformations on the board with him). Still the best is when you can play both stalagg and fuegen on the turn before and then play deathwing the next turn, which assuming they did not silence or kill one of the twins, you get the 12/12 deathwing and two 11/11's from the twins.

 

[Vivendi]

Blizz announcement about a future annoucement date.

"You are cordially invited to witness a proclamation of grand proportions! Tune in to the official Hearthstone Twitch channel or join us in-person at the Folsom Street Foundry in San Francisco, CA, on July 22 starting at 2:30 p.m. PDT for a few very special Hearthstone matches, shop-talk with developers, and one momentous announcement!"

 

[AgentUnknown]

An announcement for an announcement? Where is the announcement for today?

 

[quikah]

They really need to update arena to make it a bit less RNG dependant. I have had several just terrible drafts that make it not so fun (4 rares, the rest commons, blah, come on).

I had a good draft with a priest the last go around, 5 rares, 3 epics, 1 legendary. I skated to 5 wins easily, then it got tough facing all the other people with good decks. wound up finishing with only 6 wins. 2 terrible draws the last 2 games, had all 4+ mana cards for the first 4 turns.

 

[Wardawg1001]

They really need to update arena to make it a bit less RNG dependant. I have had several just terrible drafts that make it not so fun (4 rares, the rest commons, blah, come on).

I had a good draft with a priest the last go around, 5 rares, 3 epics, 1 legendary. I skated to 5 wins easily, then it got tough facing all the other people with good decks. wound up finishing with only 6 wins. 2 terrible draws the last 2 games, had all 4+ mana cards for the first 4 turns.

I think the draft format was fine back when the game was released. It was just hard enough to put together a deck with a good mix of solid minions and a few combo cards. But with all of the new cards that have been added since then, there is just too much variance in the card choices now, and a lot of those new cards are very situational or are extremely ineffective without the proper set of supporting cards. This has all led to arena deck drafting be very much luck based, there isn't nearly as much skill or strategy involved in it as there used to be.

Something as simple as making each card selection a choice between 4 cards instead of 3 would make a huge difference. I'd also like to see them add the ability to essentially 'mulligan' a set of cards (i.e. you don't like any of the choices, and you can throw that set of cards out and get a new set to choose from). This would have to be limited to something like 5 mulligans per draft obviously.

Suggestions like these have been floating around for a long time, but I really think its time Blizzard gives it some serious consideration. This problem is only going to get worse as more and more cards are added, and I suspect Blizzard has another big expansion (like GvG sized, 100+ new cards) coming within the next 3-6 months.

 

[wetech]

I think the draft format was fine back when the game was released. It was just hard enough to put together a deck with a good mix of solid minions and a few combo cards. But with all of the new cards that have been added since then, there is just too much variance in the card choices now, and a lot of those new cards are very situational or are extremely ineffective without the proper set of supporting cards. This has all led to arena deck drafting be very much luck based, there isn't nearly as much skill or strategy involved in it as there used to be.

Something as simple as making each card selection a choice between 4 cards instead of 3 would make a huge difference. I'd also like to see them add the ability to essentially 'mulligan' a set of cards (i.e. you don't like any of the choices, and you can throw that set of cards out and get a new set to choose from). This would have to be limited to something like 5 mulligans per draft obviously.

Suggestions like these have been floating around for a long time, but I really think its time Blizzard gives it some serious consideration. This problem is only going to get worse as more and more cards are added, and I suspect Blizzard has another big expansion (like GvG sized, 100+ new cards) coming within the next 3-6 months.

5 mulligans per draft is too much. I'd say pick from 4 cards + 1 mulligan would help a lot. You'd see another 33 cards that way.

 

[Wardawg1001]

5 mulligans per draft is too much. I'd say pick from 4 cards + 1 mulligan would help a lot. You'd see another 33 cards that way.

Ya I was just kinda throwing numbers out there. There would obviously need to be some testing on the effects of being given a choice between 4 cards each pick. I think somewhere between 3-5 mulligans would be the sweet spot (keep in mind I'm assuming these changes wouldn't come before the next big expansion back, so you gotta think about this like theres another 100-150 cards in the game).

There would need to be some rules around the mulligans obviously. If you mulligan a set of cards, the replacement cards will be the same rarity (to prevent things like mulliganing heavily on picks 1 and 30 which have the highest chances of epic/legendary cards). Also you can't mulligan the same set more than once, again mostly to prevent people from just using all of their mulligans on epic/legendary sets.

Or maybe have the different rarity's cost a different amount of your mulligans. Say you have 5 total, a normal card mulligan costs 1, rare costs 2, epic costs 3, and legendary costs 4. Keeps mulligans from being too effective, and also adds a little bit of strategy to it all.

 

[ewdotson]

Out of curiosity, has there been any talk of rotating sets out over time? Even if they don't want to introduce some sort of restricted format for constructed, it seems like more of a long-term solution for the draft issues.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, I have enough dust for another legendary... Debating on what to get. Already have the following:

Neutral Legendaries:
Nat Pagle
Harrison Jones
Sylvanas Windrunner
Dr. Boom
Ragnaros the Firelord
Sneed's Old Shredder
Alexstrasza
Ysera
Deathwing

(of course all the expansion Legendaries)

Class Legendaries:
Archmage Antonidas
Flame Leviathan
Tirion Fordring
Vol'jin
Grommash Hellscream

I think Grommash was my last new one (which allowed me to make probably the best deck in the game). Not sure what to go for next. I am at a toss up really. I am debating Lord Jaxx so I can make a decent Warlock deck.

 

[AgentUnknown]

Nat pagle sucks. It gets killed way to early.

Why not Dr. Boom? Or lord Jaxx?

 

[Fallen Kell]

If you read my post you would see I already own Dr Boom (the list I posted are the ones I already OWN not what I am debating on). Lord Jaxx is one of the ones I am seriously contemplating since it is a real game changer on Warlock.

 

[quikah]

Make Mimirons Head!!

Serious answer, Jaxx, maybe Prophet Velen?

 

[Vivendi]

Lord Jarraxus is a must if you want to play handlock.
Other legendaries you might think about are Malygos, malganis, cenarius, bloodmage thalnos... depends upon what kind of decks you want to play next.

 

[AgentUnknown]

Why is Lord Jaxx so good for handlock? I guess b/c u are constantly life tapping and need that extra 15 life? I guess I will dust some gold cards to get it. Thanks.

 

[justoh]

Why is Lord Jaxx so good for handlock? I guess b/c u are constantly life tapping and need that extra 15 life? I guess I will dust some gold cards to get it. Thanks.

plus weapon and infernals (which often can be used same turn if you use emp).

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah I went with Lord Jaxx. I just had a great fight against a Mage in my Warrior. He essentially knew what Warrior deck I had (I mean doesn't everyone anymore), so he was trying to play it properly. I forced him to use a sheep on a minion that he couldn't afford to do it against, and I also forced a flamestrike before I had rolled out the party, and I partied hard

I held onto a Death's Bite for a few turns, and finally unloaded when he played a Stormwind Champ, but not before putting up a windsong, an unstable ghoul, and a grim patron. After the death bite gave doubled my grim patron, I inner raged the new one (3 patrons on the board), attacked the Stormwind with the unstable ghoul (since it had charge form the windwong), which then exploded, killing the Stormwind, doubling my grim's, for 6 grim's (1 of which was a 5/1), all with charge, and hit the mage for 20 damage. The mage had a second flamestrike in his hand and used it to clear the board. I follow up with Grommash+Cruel Taskmaster for another 12 damage and the win.

 

[Madia]

Yeah I went with Lord Jaxx.

I'm having the same debate of which legendary to craft. I got Grommash Hellscream in one the the brawl packs so I created Alexstrasza to build a wallet warrior deck. I still want to play Warlock but am debating Jaxx vs Malygos. Jaxx seems to be a better card but I think Malygos is getting more play with the demon zoo. I'm already playing control with warrior so was more looking for mid game agro with Warlock than playing handlock control. Still, Jaxx is awfully tempting.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah, with the other legendaries I already had, Jaxx just seemed like the right card for me. Malygos or the deathrattle druid legendary are probably my next two ones to choose from.