Hearthstone

[Vivendi]

This brawl is like a slower version of a previous brawl, the one where we started with 10 mana.

I played three games with aggro paladin and won all 3. Just kept emptying my hand and refilling with divine favour and blessing of wisdom on enemy minions.

Tried a murloc deck as well but that didn't work out too good.

If you do want to go for a mid range deck, I suggest focusing on putting more 3,5,7 mana drops in your deck, so you can curve out easier. I think legendary packed decks would be too slow and just lose alright to decks like aggro paladin, zoolock or face hunter.

 

[artemicion]

my friends are trying to get me back into this game (I played when it first came out, got the achievement needed for that one WoW mount, and never played again).

should I be using my gold to buy starter decks, or should I buy from the latest expansion?

Pretty much just started myself. I do just fine playing Constructed/Ranked with the basic decks you start out with and a few custom decks built with what few cards I've got. I've been in playing as Rank 25-20 and at those levels the basic decks will suit you just fine.

I pretty much play Constructed until I've got enough gold to play Arena. Arena's nice since it puts you on a level playing field with everyone else and if you're halfway decent at drafting you'll get more bang for you buck from Arena rewards. You can't choose what kind of pack you get in Arena, but whatever. When you're starting out you'll get something useful from any pack.

 

[Aikouka]

I just made some Warlock deck with some good cards around the different mana points but also a heavy focus on high-end cards. I won because my opponent brought either a control Warrior or patron Warrior deck (he used the Armorsmith and Shield Block). Yeah, he gave up around turn 5 after he wasted all of his Executes and realized that I had tons of legendaries left.

So, I think I used up about all of my Arena mojo lately. I went 7-3 the other day (on Mage of course), and since then, I've done so, so poorly. I went 0-3 and 1-3 yesterday. I don't know if my draft choices just aren't very good, or if my opponent is just more lucky than me, but some of the situations that I've been in have been particularly nasty. For example, one guy used that ability that destroys all minions but the highest attack one in combination with a Flesheating Ghoul to boost it up to enough damage to kill me that turn. :\

My usual problem is that when I go to place a minion, I know that it will just end up dying to something that my opponent already has on the board. However, I have to play something, or I will lose. That's pretty much what I understand from the aggressive state of Arena. Unless you've got some crazy board clear, you can't let yourself fall behind.

 

[Madia]

So, I think I used up about all of my Arena mojo lately. I went 7-3 the other day (on Mage of course), and since then, I've done so, so poorly. I went 0-3 and 1-3 yesterday. I don't know if my draft choices just aren't very good, or if my opponent is just more lucky than me, but some of the situations that I've been in have been particularly nasty. For example, one guy used that ability that destroys all minions but the highest attack one in combination with a Flesheating Ghoul to boost it up to enough damage to kill me that turn. :\

Arena often time seems horribly RNG. About 2 weeks before grand tournament was released I got to 12 wins for the first time (with a mage). My next time was also with a mage and I went 3-3. Recently I went 0-3 with a Priest and 2-3 with a mage.

I enjoy the mode but blizzard really needs to modify it since they dynamic has changed with the influx of new cards. Either let us choose 1 out of 4 cards or 2 out of 5 rather than 1 out of 3.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Bahahaaa... poor poor deathrattle shaman. I was playing in my ramp druid and this poor shaman was up against me.

On turn 3 he pulls out the harvest golem (he had a 0/2+magic totem out as well), but I had nothing on the board yet. Since I went first, on my turn 4 I play the 2/4+do 2 damage and kill the magic totem (because I didn't know he was a deathrattle yet and that magic power can really hurt in bursts with a shaman). He then plays the 4/3+deathrattle mech and hits my face. I play a sludge beltcher. He pops down barron von deathrattle doubler and a 1/2+1 attack on new deathrattle minion, and then hits my sludge with the harvest golem and getting 2x 2/1's in return and then kills the harvest golem with the 4/3 getting a 3/2 acid ooze and a 0/7 doomsayer!

I say sorry a billion times, and just hit his face with my 2/4 and 1/2+hero power. The doomsayer clears the board. He plays another 1/2+deathrattle spider and a totem. I kill the totem with another 2/4+2 damage and then play a innervate and a 4/4+charge druid of the claw and kill the totem (another magic). He plays an explosive sheep and reincarnates it, killing his 1/2. I play a +4 heath+taunt on the now 4/2 druid, hit his face with the druid and the now 2/2 and use my hero power to kill the sheep and clear his board. He quits.

 

[Vivendi]

I like reading your game summaries but please try to use the proper card names. It would make it so much easier to understand for me personally
4/3+deathrattle mech = Piloted Shredder
1/2+1attack on deathrattle = Undertaker
1/2 = Slime
1/2+deathrattle spider= Haunted Creeper
+4 Health+taunt = Mark of the Wild (this card is bad, I wouldn't run it)

 

[lupi]

Just got fubared by the animation bug in an arena game. Played my first card just before the cord, dropped second just after. Had 2 or 3 attacks to do but with my card animations and then other plays from deathrattle after first attack, time ran out and it wouldn't acknowledge my other attacks.

 

[Fallen Kell]

+4 Health+taunt = Mark of the Wild (this card is bad, I wouldn't run it)

It is very situational. I only run 1 in my deck and I can't tell you how many times it has saved me. Because like you said, most people don't use it, and as such, don't expect it either. They plan around all the other possible cards and combos, but that one tends to not enter their minds. I have used it for taunting and clearing many times when they were not expecting that as the answer (thinking instead that I would have to use a swipe or starfall to make the clear, possibly in a situation where that mana cost would mean it was my only play, and thus not allow me to take board control).

I do agree that Mark of the Wild is a better card cost wise, but as I said, there are also times where +4 health+taunt is much more valuable than +2/2 health+taunt, especially on minions that may already have high attack and certainly don't need more (like take Feugen when playing against a Priest for instance, I would much rather the +4 health+taunt than +2/2 and taunt making Feugen vulnerable to Shadow Word: Death, whereas now he has to waste either a lot of minions, a silence, or lots spells to deal with the 4/11+taunt).

I actually feel sorry to Priests if they fight my druid deck. I have SO many 4 attack minions and/or combos to 4 attack minions that it isn't even funny.

 

[Fallen Kell]

So, I hadn't been buying packs with my gold for a week or so and I don't know if it was just the timing or awesome RNG luck. I bought 8 packs (for 800 gold) and out of them, received 4 legendaries! The new warrior legendary, the new priest legendary (already had it), one of the pair that does something when targeted by a spell (I got the one that does 3 damage to a random enemy), and the legendary that replaces your hero power with an improved one (this could be very useful, but I havn't seen it's effect on all the heroes yet, just warrior and priest, in which the warrior gains 4 armor on his hero power and the priest heals for 4).

 

[quikah]

the legendary that replaces your hero power with an improved one (this could be very useful, but I havn't seen it's effect on all the heroes yet, just warrior and priest, in which the warrior gains 4 armor on his hero power and the priest heals for 4).

Talked about a few pages back I believe.

Druid - 2armor/2damage
Hunter - 3 damage
Mage - 2 damage
rogue - 2/2 weapon
Warlock - no life cost
Paladin - 2 guys
Shaman - pick the totem (pretty lame)

 

[Aikouka]

I'm not sure what I think about Justicar Trueheart. Her name reminds me of a Care Bear. Anyway, the ability switch can be nice, but the minion is nearly worthless. She's almost always taken out by some small minion or a weak spell as she's only a 6/3. As for the ability swap, it depends on what the focus of your deck is. For example, a Paladin focusing on Muster for Battle and Quartermasters would probably like getting two tokens instead of one.

 

[Vivendi]

So, I hadn't been buying packs with my gold for a week or so and I don't know if it was just the timing or awesome RNG luck. I bought 8 packs (for 800 gold) and out of them, received 4 legendaries! The new warrior legendary, the new priest legendary (already had it), one of the pair that does something when targeted by a spell (I got the one that does 3 damage to a random enemy), and the legendary that replaces your hero power with an improved one (this could be very useful, but I havn't seen it's effect on all the heroes yet, just warrior and priest, in which the warrior gains 4 armor on his hero power and the priest heals for 4).

Nice. I'm at only 4 legendaries from nearly 160 TGT packs opened, hoping my luck will change sometime soon. I've got Varian Wrynn, Eadric the Pure, Eydis Darkbane and Nexus Champion Saraad.

 

[Vivendi]

Haven't played much hearthstone this month, besides getting my brawl pack.

Decided to start ranking today. Was climbing really fast with a dragon warrior but then started running into secret paladins and mages every game around rank 12. Three straight secret paladins consecutively and lost every game by turn 7 or 8.
Got mad and made a midrange hunter with double flares to target all the paladins (and mages as well). Again 3 straight paladin games, won only 1... didn't draw my flares in any game, even though I mulliganed for them. Every paladin had their Mysterious Champion right on turn 6.

Finally switched to my fallback deck, handlock, and am on a win streak at rank 9 right now.

Still I had hoped TGT would slow the meta down but looks like face hunters have been just replaced with secret paladins.

 

[Fallen Kell]

The only thing that will slow the meta down will be low cost, taunts that have half decent attack power and health and/or low cost deathrattle taunts like the sludge beltcher and/or low cost, high-powered hero healing. Until then, this will be what we see.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Finally made a handlock deck (I crafted the clockwork giants I needed from the dust of the duplicate priest legendary). My 2nd or 3rd battle in it was against a facehunter. I almost felt sorry for him when on turn 3 he played a wolfrider because I had 2 molten giants and a defender of argus in my hand...

So, I started first and did nothing turn 1. He popped coin and played a savaging hyena. Turn 2 I used hero power (28 heath) and drew a molten giant with it. He attacked me with the hyena and used his hero power (24 heath). I pop hero power on turn 3, getting a argus (22 health). He plays the wolfrider and attacks (17 health). I play a twilight drake. He plays a hunter's mark on my drake (I jump for joy) attacks my face and pops hero power (10 health). I pop both molten giants and argus them and attack him with the drake. He sits there.... waits some more... waits some more... plays an eaglehorn bow, attacks one of my 9/9+taunt moltens with his hero (bringing his hero to 17 health), attacks the same molten with the wolf rider, and then kills it with the hyena. I play a healbot and attack his hero for 15 damage, and he quits.

I really don't know what he was thinking attacking the molten with his hero. I guess it was his only way of clearing it and he must have not had a kill command.

 

[HumblePie]

Finally made a handlock deck (I crafted the clockwork giants I needed from the dust of the duplicate priest legendary). My 2nd or 3rd battle in it was against a facehunter. I almost felt sorry for him when on turn 3 he played a wolfrider because I had 2 molten giants and a defender of argus in my hand...

So, I started first and did nothing turn 1. He popped coin and played a savaging hyena. Turn 2 I used hero power (28 heath) and drew a molten giant with it. He attacked me with the hyena and used his hero power (24 heath). I pop hero power on turn 3, getting a argus (22 health). He plays the wolfrider and attacks (17 health). I play a twilight drake. He plays a hunter's mark on my drake (I jump for joy) attacks my face and pops hero power (10 health). I pop both molten giants and argus them and attack him with the drake. He sits there.... waits some more... waits some more... plays an eaglehorn bow, attacks one of my 9/9+taunt moltens with his hero (bringing his hero to 17 health), attacks the same molten with the wolf rider, and then kills it with the hyena. I play a healbot and attack his hero for 15 damage, and he quits.

I really don't know what he was thinking attacking the molten with his hero. I guess it was his only way of clearing it and he must have not had a kill command.

He played badly. The moment he saw you just holding on to cards and especially dropping that drake he should have known to time his damage to do 15 lethal in a round at least and nothing less. With the assumption that handlock decks have 1 or 2 molten giants along with argus or sunfury is a given. So as a player of an agro deck chipping away at the players health pool once the handlock gets close to 15 is not bright. Get a handlock to 15 and then if need be ease off the gas until an opportunity presents itself to do all 15 damage in one turn to finish it.

 

[HumblePie]

Haven't played much hearthstone this month, besides getting my brawl pack.

Decided to start ranking today. Was climbing really fast with a dragon warrior but then started running into secret paladins and mages every game around rank 12. Three straight secret paladins consecutively and lost every game by turn 7 or 8.
Got mad and made a midrange hunter with double flares to target all the paladins (and mages as well). Again 3 straight paladin games, won only 1... didn't draw my flares in any game, even though I mulliganed for them. Every paladin had their Mysterious Champion right on turn 6.

Finally switched to my fallback deck, handlock, and am on a win streak at rank 9 right now.

Still I had hoped TGT would slow the meta down but looks like face hunters have been just replaced with secret paladins.

That stupid epic paladin card that plays all their secrets as a battlecry is stupidly OP for turn 6.

 

[Vivendi]

I usually run a single copy of BGH in most of my decks. It's working great against these secret paladins. I think over the last few days, most people have switched from aggro version of secret paladin to a better, more mid range version with Dr. Boom and Tirion.

Mysterious challenger will usually pull in 4 or 5 secrets, depending on opponent decklist and the secrets always proc in a set sequence unlike mage and hunter secrets, so you can usually proc them in an efficient manner easily unless you were already behind on the board before mysterious challenger is played.

1. Noble sacrifice always procs first. So keep this in mind when choosing your minion to attack with first.
2. Avenge procs, +3/+2. This is why keeping the paladin's board clear is so important, because this will then buff the challenger (usually what you want). You don't ever want this hitting divine shielded minions.
3. Redemption procs - the 2/1 Get down revives.
4. Now if there are still two secrets left, they are Repentenance and Competitive spirit. If there's only one secret left, it's probably competitive spirit in 99% of cases, but just to be sure, drop a smaller minion first.
Decision to proc the competitive spirit depends upon board state. I like to not proc it ever, if possible. Otherwise, best case scenario is that it only procs on the 2/1 Get down alone on the board.

I think secret paladin is strong but still nowhere as annoying or as strong as grim patron warrior.

 

[Aikouka]

I think secret paladin is strong but still nowhere as annoying or as strong as grim patron warrior.

I think that's because Grim Patron Warrior just kills you out of nowhere. At least with a Secret Paladin, you usually still have to keep going to have them build up the momentum to just overwhelm you. Although, both decks are similar in that they have their cringe turns. With a Warrior, you usually cringe on turn 9 (-# of turns Emperor has been on board), and with a Paladin, you usually cringe on turn 6.

I started playing this Druid Token deck, and it's not too bad. I think it's a slightly "less token-y" deck than some others that are out there, but it's not bad. Although, I still tend to prefer to play Priest, so getting stuck with Druid tends to just bum me out. I just wish I had more dragon cards so I could at least go with Dragon Priest.

 

[Vivendi]

Watched the blizzcon qualifiers for North America while playing on ranked. I'm at rank 5 now which was my goal. LOTS of secret paladins, but I've learned to beat them pretty consistently.
The golden epic should really help out my collection, hopefully I get something I don't already have. I'm still missing around 25% of epics, but I pretty much have all the ones used in constructed play

 

[lupi]

This game is getting kinda bad, unless you're spending a large amount of time to grind gold or spending serious money to buy it, it is getting rather impractical to do much over rank 20. Managed to get one good deck but quest don't support it, have fun losing all your ranking as you try to finish it...

 

[Fallen Kell]

This game is getting kinda bad, unless you're spending a large amount of time to grind gold or spending serious money to buy it, it is getting rather impractical to do much over rank 20. Managed to get one good deck but quest don't support it, have fun losing all your ranking as you try to finish it...

Are you playing the same game I am playing? Trump just started a brand new account at the beginning of this month and is playing it in ranked. Yes, he got a little lucky on his first couple packs he unlocked (getting a cabal shadow priest and a few support priest cards). He also got decent card selection choices in most of his arena runs (using the gold he unlocked via quests), which has allowed him to open up more packs.

He has opened around 45 packs since the beginning of this month and is at around rank 8 using essentially free and common cards with just 9 rare and 2 epic.


As for losing your ranking trying to finish a quest that you don't have a good deck for... Why the hell are you playing it ranked?!?!! Play your crappy decks outside of ranked play to finish your quests, or mulligan you quest to try and get a different one that you have a better deck to do. Never play use a crappy deck in ranked play and you won't be losing your rank trying to finish a quest.


I just started playing a few arena games again. My first two I had real crap choices (for either cards or character). For instance I had a choice of Shaman, Warlock, or Warrior in one run, so went with Shaman, only to get the crappiest of crappy cards (I mean really bad choices, just 3 cards that were all useless on their own or useless in my deck that I had going being way to high a mana curve, like for instance a choice between two 9 costs cards and a 4 cost Jeeves). Needless to say that deck one a total of 1 match.

My second run I manage to get a Mage (awesome!), and then proceeded to not get a SINGLE SPELL. I am not joking here. I did not have a choice of a single spell out of all the cards it gave me. And not only that, the cards were not even decent cards (not a single card that would let me draw more cards, not a single card that enrages). What is bad is that I selected 3 early spell damage cards assuming I would have to get a couple good damage spells (these were not useless minions, but there were better choices if I had known I would have even been given the choice of a single spell). That deck didn't win a single game.

On my third run, I finally got both a good character and good choices for cards (in fact very good). It was a Paladin and I essentially had a murlok rider deck (with a mukla's champion to boot). That deck steamrolled.

 

[justoh]

Who am I? None of your business!

No, nothing is more annoying.

 

[Piotrsama]

This game is getting kinda bad, unless you're spending a large amount of time to grind gold or spending serious money to buy it, it is getting rather impractical to do much over rank 20. Managed to get one good deck but quest don't support it, have fun losing all your ranking as you try to finish it...

Use casual mode (or tavern brawl) for your quests.

 

[HumblePie]

Are you playing the same game I am playing? Trump just started a brand new account at the beginning of this month and is playing it in ranked. Yes, he got a little lucky on his first couple packs he unlocked (getting a cabal shadow priest and a few support priest cards). He also got decent card selection choices in most of his arena runs (using the gold he unlocked via quests), which has allowed him to open up more packs.

He has opened around 45 packs since the beginning of this month and is at around rank 8 using essentially free and common cards with just 9 rare and 2 epic.


As for losing your ranking trying to finish a quest that you don't have a good deck for... Why the hell are you playing it ranked?!?!! Play your crappy decks outside of ranked play to finish your quests, or mulligan you quest to try and get a different one that you have a better deck to do. Never play use a crappy deck in ranked play and you won't be losing your rank trying to finish a quest.


I just started playing a few arena games again. My first two I had real crap choices (for either cards or character). For instance I had a choice of Shaman, Warlock, or Warrior in one run, so went with Shaman, only to get the crappiest of crappy cards (I mean really bad choices, just 3 cards that were all useless on their own or useless in my deck that I had going being way to high a mana curve, like for instance a choice between two 9 costs cards and a 4 cost Jeeves). Needless to say that deck one a total of 1 match.

My second run I manage to get a Mage (awesome!), and then proceeded to not get a SINGLE SPELL. I am not joking here. I did not have a choice of a single spell out of all the cards it gave me. And not only that, the cards were not even decent cards (not a single card that would let me draw more cards, not a single card that enrages). What is bad is that I selected 3 early spell damage cards assuming I would have to get a couple good damage spells (these were not useless minions, but there were better choices if I had known I would have even been given the choice of a single spell). That deck didn't win a single game.

On my third run, I finally got both a good character and good choices for cards (in fact very good). It was a Paladin and I essentially had a murlok rider deck (with a mukla's champion to boot). That deck steamrolled.

Your arena draft is 80% of my arena experience ever. Not being offered a single mage spell I've had that happen to me multiple times. But no one around here believes it can happen for some reason because it hasn't happened to them.

Now I have had good decks, and I have a 12 win key playing arena, but that is the massive exception and far from the norm. When it comes to arena the cards I get offered tend to give me decks I can maybe win 1 or 2 games. Going 3 wins is rare for me in arena. Which is pretty much the reason I gave up on arena as you only can break even with 3 wins. You need 5 wins to actually get more out of your gold and time investment than you put in. Since I only get 5 wins 10% of the time, it was a horrible thing for me.

Funny thing is, the same is happening to a coworker of mine now. He recently started playing 2 months ago and has been playing a LOT more than me. He originally did arena and did alright like myself. But then he started getting the same crap. He said originally he was doing 5+ wins 75% of the time at least. Then it was barely getting 1 or 2 wins if he was lucky 75% of the time. A few times at work we both tried drafting while the other one watched and saw the same results. So neither one of us play arena anymore and just buy packs.


As for Trumps experience... he can grind it out while we plebs can't. He also bought packs for it. The true casual gamer that doesn't buy anything goes up against people that do and gets clobbered. Trump is an experienced player on a new account. He starts a new account, buys some packs, and proceeds to go into rank. Even while in rank there is still an Elo matchup, so as a new account he is going against other new accounts and chances are those accounts are not being played by experienced players and don't have any purchased packs. Of course he is going to clobber them and rise up in rank to about 10 by grinding there. However, at 10 is where the Elo matching for him will start to go against him. Then he'll hover there, and sit and get screwed until he buys more packs. This is pretty much what happened and was predicted by many who watch him thought would happen. It's not a fair example to go on for new players.