Hearthstone- Heroes of Warcraft (Enter Your ID!)

[AngryPidgeon]

So I started playing this

[AngryPidgeon]

Im AngryPidgeon#1463 ?

[AngryPidgeon]

Mage seems pretty powerful. At least I've been doing pretty ok with my barely any cards.

Mirror Image is kinda ridiculous and scales with so many things.

[AngryPidgeon]

What is the plan for the game after that?

[AngryPidgeon]

I finally decided to dip into ranked after farming the arena for packs a little bit.

Im 7-0 in ranked with my priest deck so far. Step aside bitches.

2xPower Word:Shield (+2 HP to minion, +1 card)
2x Northshire Cleric (1/3, Card when minion healed)
1 Worgen Infiltrator (2/1 stealth)
2x Shadow Word: Pain (Kill <=3 attack minion)
2x Acidic Swamp Ooze (3/2, destroy enemies weapon on entry)
2x Amani Berserker (2/3, +3 atk when enraged)
2x Faerie Dragon (3/2, untargetable)
2x Shadow Word Death (Kill >= 5 atk minion)
1x Acolyte of pain (1/3, +1 card when damaged)
1x Raging Worgen (3/3, + windfury and 2 atk when enraged)
2x Gnomish Inventor (2/4, draw a card on entry)
1x Light spawn (*/5, atk = current hp)
2x Sen'jin Shieldmaster (3/5, taunt)
2x holy Nova (deal 2 to all enemies, heal 2 all allies)
2x Gurubashi Berserker (2/7, +3 atk whenever damaged)
1x Stranglethorn Tiger (5/5, stealth)
2x Lord of the Arena (6/5 taunt)
1x Prophet Velen (7/7, doubles spell effects from your hero)
1x Stormwind Champion (6/6, all allies +1/+1)
1x MindControl (gain control of an enemy minion)

Going for 8 : P

[AngryPidgeon]

What sort of tool runs a murloc rush in arena

If I lose to this guy.

[AngryPidgeon]

Level 25-20 is a joke anyways.

Meh well win 7 sling-shotted me to 20. This game is looking like a win I should hit 19 after my 8-0 : P

[AngryPidgeon]

8-0 ^^. Uh oh, another priest deck.

[AngryPidgeon]

Does anyone know how the packs work? I have no idea if there is any concept of rarity in this game (Im sure there is).

Is it possible to get more than 2 copies of a card (which would be useless)?

Can some cards only be acquired through crafting?

Do pack distributions guarantee a certain amount of rarities per pack?

Why do I always lose to warlock decks?

[AngryPidgeon]

I'd play? But only if I can run all the cheesy cheese.

[AngryPidgeon]

So how do I beat the freaking 2 for 4/4 spider spam from Anub heroic. OP.

[AngryPidgeon]

Heroic Maexxna was not that hard really.

You just need to draw the Elven Archers (1 for 1/1, Battlecry: deal 1) and spam 2 of them on loop. the voodoo witch doctor (heal 2) was also pretty handy.

Stampeding Kodo and the 3/2 Goblin that deals 3 random damage because why not.

[AngryPidgeon]

the trick to beating Heroic Anub is to hope he draws cards he can play so that he isn't opening turn 1/2 by spawning 4/4s on your ass.

[AngryPidgeon]

I went from Rank 17 to 8 in < 24 hours with my new deck.

[AngryPidgeon]

2 soulfire

2 Elven Archer
2 Abusive sergeant
2 Voidwalker
2 Leper Gnome
2 Argent Squire

2 Naxx Egg
2 Naxx Spider
1 Juggler
2 Loot Hoarder

2 Raid Leader
2 Harvest Golem
2 Shattered Sun Cleric

2 DarkIron Dwarf
1 Defender of Argus

1 Doomguard
1 Frostwolf warlord

op

[AngryPidgeon]

Knife juggler is such a counter to leeroy D:

Not really. Its just extremely lolzy when it actually works out that way.

In a 100% ideal scenario, you still have only a 25% chance of killing him with it.

[AngryPidgeon]

The first rule of arena is you don't play arena.
The second rule of arena is you don't. play. arena.
The third rule is mage.

Disagree?

Arena is excellent if you know what you are doing.

And mage is pretty weak in it ime.

[AngryPidgeon]

Arena is dumb. It's a half-assed limited format that is pointless because it's not really a format and instead RNG. Anytime you completely disregard the rules you've set for deckbuilding (more than 2x of a card allowed in arena), you're doing something wrong.

-shrug-, I like it as a format, but I might be biased because Im averaging 5 wins per run.

Im mainly doing it to farm cards though.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think paladin is best in arena

My tierlist in arena looks something like

God Tier:
Hunter, Paladin

Good Tier:
Druid, Shaman

Meh Tier:
Warlock, Priest

Garbáge Tier:
Mage, Rogue, Warrior

[AngryPidgeon]

There needs to be an emote for

"If you have it stop being a raging dickhole and win the game"

[AngryPidgeon]

I crafted a Leeroy

I feel like I really need to do this.

[AngryPidgeon]

But knowing my luck, I will pull one the instant I craft it.

[AngryPidgeon]

How far did it go?

[AngryPidgeon]

New Priest deck is doing a lot of work for me in ranked. Grew 5 ranks.

2 Circle of Healing

2 Northshire Cleric
2 Zombie Chow
2 PW:S

2 SW:P
1 Ironbeak owl (I cant NOT run this card srsly)
1 Mad Bomber (cause I do want to blow something up)

1 SW:D
2 Thoughtsteal
1 Dark Cultist
2 Injured BM

1 Shadow Madness
2 Auchenai Priest
1 Defender of Argus

1 Faceless Manipulator
1 Loatheb
1 Sludge Belcher

1 Temple Enforcer

1 Prophet Velen

1 KT

1 Ysera

1 Mind Control

[AngryPidgeon]

So far ysera has been my most effective endgamer. I don't think I actually have a cabal priest... I could craft one to try it out though.

I'd probably swap kt for rag if I had rag.

I agree Kt is situational, he does better here than my other attempts at running him. Lots of persistence and control to build up to him.

I think shadow word pain is solid. Generally efficient card for card trade.

[AngryPidgeon]

I have mukla, king krush, alexstraza, Velen, ysera

[AngryPidgeon]

Spoiler: Guess how far this arena deck is going to go

Cairne, Leeroy, Ysera.

[AngryPidgeon]

Im still fighting the good fight.

[AngryPidgeon]

Bah. Made it to 11-3.

[AngryPidgeon]

I fought Kripp last night in arena. I should have taken a screenshot, but I forgot. I didn't even notice who I was playing against until the 2nd to last turn or so and then I signed on to his stream right after to verify it was him. I knocked him out of his arena run, hehehe. He was playing prkiest and I played pally. When I signed onto his stream he was QQign about Truesilverchampions and was probably QQing about my double Follow ze Rules and Humility drop.

[AngryPidgeon]

Oh also he put down a Deathlord as a last ditch effort in the end game. I one-shotted it with my BoK'd Venture Co Mercenary and it summoned a Sludge Belcher for me. I said "Well Met!" when my Belcher came out. Was lolz.

[AngryPidgeon]

^ I've seen that. I noticed his name right after the Deathlord play and I was like "wait, this can't possibly be him...", but I looked on twitch and sure enough it was him.

[AngryPidgeon]

AP's Arena Guide

I have 671 wins in arena. I play more arena than normal play. I can float arena runs for literally an entire day of play by earning enough to requeue again over and over. I'm writing this to try and get my thoughts out.

Why should I play arena?

Because its the best way to farm cards if you know what you are doing. It doesn't require a budget to do well in - everyone is on the same footing. Also...its fun! You get to improvise on the fly and come up with new strategies as you play.

Ok, thats great! Now what do I need to draft to go 12-0?

First things first: arena is a grab bag. While there are good heuristics to live by and some science to apply, there will be a fair amount of luck in arena. Some drafts will be bad and there is nothing that can stop that. Sometimes you will get a good draft and get curbstomped by Ragnaros or a Mind Control Tech. When something goes wrong, take the time to consider the source. Was it just a bad draft? Was your deck's mana curve off? Did you play into one of your opponent's removals? Most importantly ,don't get discouraged. Take your time when making plays. Consider all the options - sometimes the correct play or draft is not the obvious one.

I spent my

150 coins

$1.99 and I'm faced with my first choice!; What hero do I pick?

There are a few running theories on this. Trump will tell you that no class in particular is the best, barring potentially hunter. I believe it was Kripp who recently endorsed warlock in part due to the value you can get off of Voidcallers. I know Trump also demonstrated this in that linked video.

I am of the opinion that hunter is the best bet for arena. Its certainly not the end-all pick.

Best Picks:

Hunter, Mage

Solid Picks:

Warlock, Paladin

Ok Picks:

Shaman, Priest+, Druid

Avoid:

Warrior, Rogue

I marked priest with a + because I think it should fall a little above the rest of the Ok picks. I would probably take it over Shaman or druid.

What do I draft?

First we need to discuss strategy. Certain combos and builds are unlikely to impossible to get in arena, so it demands a certain style of play coming into it. Arena is all about board control. Trump likes to talk about value in arena and has said its really a display of who gets the most value out of their cards, and that rush decks are impossible to build reliably. I only partially agree with this. Rush decks certainly are possible in arena, especially since 2-drops are generally solid picks regardless. Hunters and Warlocks can get away with rush strategies due to the natures of their hero powers. Warlocks continuously draw even if out of cards and Hunters can often eek a win out against opponents even after you've thrown all your cards away on early damage and control.

In general, you want a curve of roughly:

8-10 turn 1-2 drops.
5-6 turn 3 drops.
4-5 turn 4 drops.
3-4 turn 5 drops.

The rest should be spread above that. This is VERY rough. Depending on your class and picks, you can build around this.

Ok tell me already, what picks are strong?

I'll go over cards that are strong picks regardless of your Hero or any other drafts.

Cost 1: Zombie Chow, Abusive Sergeant, Argent Squire, Worgen Infiltrator. These are by far the best turn 1 picks. All of these have some form of permanence that prevents them from getting removed by Mage hero powers immediately and they can offer some favorable trades into higher cost cards. The only exception is abusive sergeant which is NOT to be played on turn 1. It is to be played when it allows you to trade an existing minion up. Honorable mention to Elven Archer which I think is undervalued by a lot of good players. Note that you should never play this except to finish killing something off (never play it on an empty board).

Beware, Undertaker is really not that great in arena. You will not reliably get enough deathrattles to make it reliable; draft it at your own risk or if you already have a huge stack of deathrattles. Young priestess is also a moderately trap pick as is anything with 1 HP that you can drop on turn 1.

Cost 2: Swamp Ooze, Knife Juggler, Mad Bomber, Haunted Creeper. 2 drops should be your bread and butter picks for the most part. You want more 2 drops than any other cost in your deck. In general, any card that is 2/3 or 3/2 is passably good in this group. Honorable mention goes out to bloodsail raider if you have a hero with weapons or Mad Scientist if you have secrets. I know I have heard some pros advise against the scientist, but I recommend it for the most part. The only time I would not take one is if there is a significant lack of secrets in my deck at the halfway point of drafting.

Avoid Ancient Watcher, Kobold Geomancer, Master Swordsmith, Nerubian Egg (unless you have several ways of activating it already).

Cost 3: Harvest Golem, Shattered Sun Cleric, Scarlet Crusader, Shade of Naxxramas. After 2 drops, these should be the majority of your deck. Ideally, you want to have control of the board from the get-go and turn 3 is a really pivotal turn. After turn 3 is when really big/sturdy minions will come flying out. It is important to play cards at this stage that will assure you have control of the board come turn 4. Harvest Golem is part of the holy trinity of arena draft picks, next to Boulderfist Ogre and Chillwind Yeti. Special shoutouts to Arcane Golem and Wolfrider in this tier. They can be very useful removal in a pinch and work well in rush decks. Be careful not to drop Arcane Golem unless you really need to or it is turn 7+ already.

Questing adventurer is an OK pick, but not fantastic. More often than not, it will draw removal. Mind Control Tech is a fairly good pick and can single handedly swing games in your favor if it gets a lucky steal. Acolyte of Pain gets an honorable mention, but is often not a strong drop on turn 3 depending on the game state. Use it only if your opponent has no clear way to one-shot it on the board.

Cost 4: Chillwind Yeti, Dark Iron Dwarf, Senjin Shield Masta, Spellbreaker. Not too much to say about this tier. I would generally avoid picking Dragonling Mechanic or Mogushan Warden since all the other 4-drops are very good. Dread corsair is bad too unless you have multiple weapons. Avoid ancient mage too. Gross.

Cost 5: Generally you want big stats at this stage. I personally think Venture Co Mercenary may be the singular best card in arena since it can immediately put a timer on how quickly you can get to lethal damage if your opponent does nothing to slow it down. It will either draw hard removal, eat through some taunters favorably, or deal lots of damage to your opponents face. The drawback of it is really not that bad given the tempo swing it provides you at the point in the game where you really want to capitalize on board advantage. Goblin Auctuioneer is really not that great unless you are running paladin or rogue (dont run rogue).

-----

What does each class bring to the table?

Hunter: Hunters are in a unique position in arena. Steady shot provides a reliable way to close out games. More than any other class, Hunters can send damage to the face over the course of the game and worry less about maintaining permanent board control. I have won several games with Explosive Trap and Steady Shot finishes while my opponent has out multiple scary monsters. All the hunter weapons are very strong picks. Animal Companion and Savannah Highmane are the 2 best cards for Hunters. The overall strategy for hunters should be to establish a strong early presence and finish the game quickly. Freezing and Explosive traps are good picks, ESPECIALLY if you have Mad Scientists. I tend to dislike deadly shot purely because of the randomness. Unleash the hounds is a fairly strong pick as well, and combos great with Cult Master.

Priests are the most difficult matchup for hunters. Try to retain board control and make favorable trades longer against priests as they can use their hero power to win in the long run if you burn out too quickly by aiming for the face. Similarly, avoid setting up too heavily against mages and paladins. Their options for board clearing are very strong.


Mages: This is probably the easiest class to pick up if you are just learning the arena meta. Frostbolts, Flamestrikes, and Fireballs are all strong picks. These make for strong removal as well as strong finishes. Water Elemental is the other core pick. It is the one card that can give Chillwind Yeti a run for its money as a strong turn 4 drop based on stats alone. Mages are all about control. Fireblast makes trades really favorable and you can often go card for card at an advantage with other players. Try to maintain a card advantage at all times. If you can pick something off with your hero power, that is often the best course of action unless there is a really big threat that needs to be addressed. Frost Nova, Ice Block, and the low cost spells are generally not very strong picks here. They are usually too situational to be worth it all the time.

Paladin: Paladins are a very strong pick in arena. Truesilver Champion is the single best pick for Paladins. The removal will clear your opponents board reliably on turn 4/5 and provides bonus value in the form of healing. Consecration is another obvious strong pick for board control. The only seriously shaky picks for pally are Eye for an Eye, Holy Light and Repentance. Blessing of Wisdom has a fair amount of value in arena. It is soft-removal for your opponents minions as it forces them to let you draw cards or not attack. Don't play it when your opponent can simply trade their monster away for reasonable value. You want to draw a couple cards with it if possible. The lack of reliable removal makes it fairly worth it for one mana. Humility and Follow ze Rules are amazing picks (although I don't know if I'd go more than 1 humility). The Peacekeeper, however, is so good I'd pick it over almost anything. The soft-removal from these spells is insanely valuable. Humility makes a VERY strong play into boulderfist ogre or war golem. Its also the one thing that makes Venture Co Mercenary a little risky of a play. I also love Argent Protector in this group since it can allow you to make a favorable trade and keep a minion alive in the process.

You can get away with having a little bit less 2 drops in your deck because your hero power supplements that a bit. If you have a choice between playing a turn 2 card from your hand, and simply using your hero power, consider only using the power. There will be some cases where you need the bigger play to get board dominance, but many times it is advisable to just take the free 1/1 and save your hand for later. I tend to like buffs in paladin arena since you have an endless supply of 1/1s to make trades with. Pallys have class cards they can use for this but Abusive Sergeant, Dark Iron Dwarf, and Defender of Argus are even better picks as Pally. As pally, you are playing the value game. Paladin has plenty of ways to remove minions (even though some of them are soft ways to do it). Try to keep one good sweeper out at all times and focus on clearing your opponents board. Be careful not to overextend where Mind control Techs, Flamestrikes, and Lightning Storms take out everything you have.

Warlocks: Warlocks primarily offer a lot of decent removal in Soulfire and Mortal Coil and some value plays with Infernal and Voidcaller. If you can manage to draft multiple Voidcallers and other demons, then Voidcaller becomes an extremely strong play. Getting an infernal out with it on turn 5 demands immediate removal as it can easily sweep the game. Avoid corruption, Sacrificial Pact, and anything that makes you lose resources that doesn't have 'Soulfire' in its name. The primary strength of warlocks is their hero power which lets them make aggressive early plays and not worry about overextending quite as much as other classes. Bring some healing with you. Earthen Ring Farseer and Molten Giants are honorable mention for warlock drafts.

Hunters are the worst matchup for warlocks. Be very careful not to get to the point where they can burst you down early and then slowly steady shot you to death. Play defensive against them early if you since they are being aggro.

Priests: Dark cultist. Priests don't offer reliably good burst damage, so you want to work to maintain card advantage over the entire game. I find that liberal use of your hero power when it can save a minion or force your opponent to play an additional card is huge. More often than not, you will want to avoid going directly for the face and instead chip away at your opponents board, using your heal to keep minions alive. The goal is to play the long game, running your opponent out of cards, or finally creeping board dominance until they have no answer for your field. High HP minions have more value in priest than anywhere else (hello 2/7 Turtle, Im looking at you). Priest is fairly strong with the Dark cultist and Lightspawn options. Dark cultist is the only card in the game that can give Golem a run for its money in value as a 3 drop. Lightspawn is a solid card for similar reasons, although not quite as strong as cultist. Temple Enforcer is insanely useful and is a better 6 drop than boulderfist ogre, most of the time. Try to avoid gimmicky picks like Inner Fire and Divine Spirit which will more often than not, make you wish you drafted something actually playable. Also don't draft Shadow Form unless you are Kripp or you want to lose.

----

General Tips

Take your time. Fully think out all options.
Pick cards that are standalone good, combos are hard.
Don't overextend. Any class with AoE removal is going to draft it over anything else, 10 times out of 10. If you already have board advantage, you don't need to risk losing card advantage by throwing more cards down.
Always stop and ask yourself if you have lethal damage on your opponent or if you can put them within lethal range by the end of your turn. Around turn 5 or 6, you need to start asking yourself this every turn. Also ask yourself if you can get there by sacrificing board control. Sometimes you have to switch from controlling to throwing the kitchen sink at your opponents face if you are starting to lose advantage.
When in doubt, draft that 2/3 or 3/2 minion that costs 2 mana. ESPECIALLY if it has "Mad" or "Bomber" in its name.
Pray to the RNGesus.
Never play a minion that your opponent can 1-shot with a hero power onto an empty board. If you are playing Young Priestess T1 into a druid/mage/rogue, you fully deserve the loss that is coming to you.
Don't play rogue.
Draft all the Animal Companions that blizzard will let you carry. 4/4 taunters on turn 3 are basically a free win.

[AngryPidgeon]

The main issue with the rogue hero power is the face damage. Against mages and hunters, you have to constantly worry that they are going to just throw everything at your face and win by turn 8. SI:7 is a good card, but its rare so you won't be getting more than 2 on a GOOD draft.

The only common that gets great value is Defias Ringleader, and the 2/1 off of that is Fireblast/Shapeshift/SilverhandRecruit bait. It requires a combo and there are already a plethora of good neutral 2-drops though. I think the Anubar Ambusher is potentially extremely underrated. I dont think Ive ever seen one played in arena which is funny because its probably passably good here.

[AngryPidgeon]

Spoiler: Wish me luck > <

[AngryPidgeon]

I decided it was time to get a more serious ladder deck since most of my decks are either halfway complete or zoolock.

Made aggro hunter with a little weird list cause Im missing a couple cards (notably a 2nd bow)

2 Hunters Mark

2 Undertaker
2 Leper Gnome
2 Webspinner
2 Flare (oh god I flared a mage's iceblock after top decking it when I was for sure going to lose and after he gave me a "sorry" for playing the block, so satisfying)

2 Haunted Spider
2 Mad Scientist
2 Freezing Trap
1 Explosive Trap

2 Unleash
2 Huffer
2 Kill Command
1 Eaglehorn Bow

2 BeastMaster
2 Cult Master

1 Loatheb
1 Venture Co Mercenary

---

Absolutely zero regrets on the Venture Co Mercenary slot.

Especially in one game where a rogue coined out a Deathlord on turn 2 to stop my Undertaker. On his 3rd turn, he ran his deathlord into my undertaker to kill both of them and my venture co mercenary came flying out. That was the easiest win ever.

[AngryPidgeon]

Went from Rank 15 to rank 7

[AngryPidgeon]

I'm currently at rank 2, 3/5 stars. I actually have a shot at legendary maybe. Gonna try for it.

Ran this from 6->2:

[AngryPidgeon]

Woooo

[AngryPidgeon]

I always accept people .

I broke down and crafted jaraxxus. Not sure if worth. I'm 2 mountain giants short of hand lock though I guess.

I managed to crazed alchemist my void called jaraxxus and hit it with double power overwhelming as a 23 attack finisher onto a 22 hp mill rogue.

[AngryPidgeon]

@Saki: I don't play much rogue. I'm skeptical of echoing ooze though. Try fitting azure drakes in somewhere?

[AngryPidgeon]

Oh also one blade flurry is important for fighting things like zoo.

[AngryPidgeon]

Pyro is probably the right choice. Faceless isnt amazing in arena.

[AngryPidgeon]

My extremely official prediction is madder bomber will be in its own top tier in arena.

[AngryPidgeon]

My extremely official prediction is madder bomber will be in its own top tier in arena.

Mad Bomber is hard enough to use. Madder Bomber is just going to be utter chaos.

Actually there wre recent stats posted on reddit indicating that Mad Bomber appears proportionately more in 12 win arena decks than any other card.

[AngryPidgeon]

In other news I just played against Zilea, got excited, sure enough he was streaming my game as I wrecked his control pally with warlock.

[AngryPidgeon]

Check out my last played and friends list.

I fought firebat and Trump back to back, both of them were playing control warrior. Firebat added me!

[AngryPidgeon]

holyshitholyshitholyshit, I might cry a little

[AngryPidgeon]

Spoiler: Legend rank ^^

Decklist was similar to last one, but a little different.

2x Mortal Coil
2x Power Overwhelming
2x Undertaker
2x Abusive Sergeant
1x Zombie Chow

2x Haunted Creeper
2x Knife Juggler
2x Sunfury Protector
2x Nerubian Egg
1x Ironbeak Owl

1x Void Terror

1x Hellfire
2x Voidcaller
1x SpellBreaker
1x Defender of Argus

1x Loatheb
1x Doomguard
1x Sludge Belcher

1x Dread Infernal
1x Sylvanas

1x Jaraxxus, Eredar lord of the burning legion.


-----

Rank 5-1 seems to be 80% AggroHunter/ControlWarrior/Priest. Priest is either deathrattle/undertaker or just control. Control is a bit more common.

Ramp druid gets played occasionally. Everything else is rare.

My final decklist catered quite a bit to the aggro hunter decks. The spellbreaker and owl were largely included for using on Mad Scientist drops because hunters getting a free trap is a really difficult tempo swing to fight against, especially since my deck counts on constant board control to stay alive. Its not just hunters though. Against warrior, acolytes of pain are really good targets for silence as are occasional belchers and armorsmiths. Against priest, its not quite as useful. It did actually save me from a Sylvanas drop from sjow though. Speaking of sjow, I fought him twice. I had PRECISE lethal in both games I played him. The last one I was one turn from losing and I top decked a power overwhelming for exact lethal.

Priest was my hardest matchup I think. Its possible I just haven't figure out how to play around them. Getting board cleared by Auchenai Circles is just hilarious and they have it every single time. Losing tempo around T4 when I need to start transitioning to big drops just really hurts.


Control warrior was a bit 50/50 at first, but my final decklist seemed to just steamroll warriors. Dropping a Spiderr/Egg often seemed to lure out either an Acolyte or Armorsmith drop which I'd promptly dispose of with an Abusive/PowerOverwhelming. I found that warriors will have a Fiery war Axe in their hand 90+% of the time, but dropping undertaker or Chow on T1 didn't really seem to slow me down much despite that. The main card to play around is brawl, I found its often best to sit on some of my smaller minions and waste mana if I already have board control. Losing all of my small drops was bad when it happened. Sunfury protector is actually a hero here. Giving 1/1 spiderlings (or other tiny minions) taunt, protected things like Jugglers from warrior weapons and forced them to get really low value off of their attacks.

Hunter is an annoying bullshit thing to fight against and madscientist needs to get the shit nerfed out of it. Mortal coils are in the deck 70% for just this matchup. Being able to snipe leper gnomes gives me a boner each and every time I do it. Silences for undertaker (or more importantly, the fucking freezing trap scientist) are necessary because getting your one minion frozen costs enough tempo that you probably lose if it happens. Taunt walls need to be up all the time, every time. This matchup feels like a coin toss and basically just comes down to how good our opening hands are.

Druid/Shaman. My combined winrate against these occasional appearances is > 90%, I dont think thats an exaggeration. Im not sure why, but it is.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think Mage is just as good as it always was in arena.

[AngryPidgeon]

I would argue hunter deserves better than T3, but I seem to be a lone voice on that front in various places.

[AngryPidgeon]

Gonna brag a bit

Ive made 6 12-win runs in arena.

3 with mage.
1 with pally.
1 with hunter.
1 with warlock.

Voidcallers are OP to the max in arena. If you can draft 3 of them and some random demons, you are in good hands.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think GvG made pally stronger, notably more impact than it did on all other classes.

[AngryPidgeon]

Nominate zoraster for Statistophile

[AngryPidgeon]

i'm kind of upset that a game that has as much depth as it does has so little in the way of built in statistics. what a missed opportunity.

"it would be too confusing for our users". Just like having more than 9 deck slots.

I bought classic packs on accident, I'm the reason we can't have nice things.

#reddit #BenBrode #4Head #TechnologyIsntThereYet

[AngryPidgeon]

what's wrong with classic packs?

I've played enough arena (and in general) to have all the commons/rares and playable epics from classic. I have all the playable neutral-legendaries too. So Classic packs are almost guaranteed to be just dust if I buy them. I bought like 7 GvG packs (or tried to) but their interface is so dumb.

Blizzard is REALLY bad at making basically navigable interfaces. Thats what happens when you let programmers do work that takes common sense.

Their customer support did exchange my packs in <24 hours though, so there is that.

[AngryPidgeon]

I mean how fucking stupid is that. You make a little option somewhere that people who REALLY WANT IT can find and toggle on and it gives them more deckslots in whatever the fuck way. Just have the collection thing SCROLL when making new decks and have different pages of decks selectable in the play mode. WOW. SO HARD. WOW.

[AngryPidgeon]

Fucking Ben Brode saying that shit is INSANE. Absolutely insane.

☑ “This guys public relations are CRAZY!” ☑ “My point can't win against a dodge like that” ☑ "He NEEDED precisely those two buzzwords to win" ☑ “He mentioned the only new feature that could bury my concern” ☑ "He had the perfect buzzwords" ☑ “There was nothing I could say” ☑ “I argued that perfectly"

[AngryPidgeon]

i'm kind of upset that a game that has as much depth as it does has so little in the way of built in statistics. what a missed opportunity.

I think built-in stats would intimidate new players. Blizzard trying to make a newb-friendly game is a really good business idea imo.

Nice try, blizzard employee.

[AngryPidgeon]

all it takes it 1 fucking stupid goddamn lucksack bullshit arena game to piss me off

Is this Kripparian?

[AngryPidgeon]

i disagree with their pick 17, and to a lesser extent 26.

I agree with this. I don't think blessing of might is very strong. I'd almost definitely take a humility over it. Wisdom vs Rockjaw Trogg is a little bit of a tossup and I'd probably make my decision based on how many 4-drops I already had. Bluegill over farseer is a little baffling to me. farseer is an actually good card, Bluegill is not.

[AngryPidgeon]

I have like 2400 dust, can't figure out what I should craft. I already crafted Dr. boom. I got sneed's shredder. I don't have any class specific GvG legendaries, but none of them seem that critical. I kind of want Mal'Ganis since warlock has been kind of my thing until I recently started playing druid for some reason. I guess the Troggzor legendary is fairly playable in a lot of control things. I've loosely wanted Tirion/Grommash/Al'akir for a while but don't play pally/warrior/shaman much anyhow.

[AngryPidgeon]

Haunted creeper and zombie chow are both good still too.

[AngryPidgeon]

Nice Dan! I'm still experimenting with decks and farming arena. I'm reviving my demonlock deck but it's more control oriented this time. My first iteration got me a couple ranks so I have hough hopes. Trying to recall my list...

2 mortal coil
2 power overwhelming

2 dark bomb
2 haunted creeper
2 wild pyro
2 nerubian egg
2 sunfury protector
1 explosive sheep

1 void terror
1 bgh

2 void caller
1 defender of argus
1 shadow flame

1 doomguard
1 loatheb
1 Harrison Jones
1 antique healbot

1 dread infernal

1 dr. Boom

1 Lord Jarraxus

....

I can't remember my last 2 card slots which is probably a sign that they aren't helping me that much. I'm considering crafting Malganis for this.

[AngryPidgeon]

Oh I'm running one Mc tech.

[AngryPidgeon]

I dont have permission to add myself.

[AngryPidgeon]

apparently Im just going to cheese my way through ladder with old school zoolock now.

[AngryPidgeon]

zoolock will be realbad after UT nerfs tho?

blizz will never take undertaker from us.

[AngryPidgeon]

I just made this kinda weird Shaman windfury/spelldamage deck. I won 4 games in normal play and took it to ranked. I played the same mechmage twice and went 1-1. The first game was really close and I was one turn from winning. I was on borrowed time and he eventually topdecked his frostbolt. I crushed him the 2nd game though. This is really fun to play though and I think it has potential.

Spoiler: decklist

[AngryPidgeon]

Swapped a Dunemaul out for TheBlackKnight. While I like the dunemauls theoretical potential, the randomness in their attack was sort of hindering.

[AngryPidgeon]

I had zero minimages and I have never encountered one in a game that I can recall. I really wanted one for this deck. I was just about to craft one and I got one in an arena pack Today. It was destiny. So far I have absolutely zero regrets about running it even if its a 4 drop with 1hp.

[AngryPidgeon]

RNGesus guide me!

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

Wooo got it.

beat a mage that played 3 flamestrikes against me in the final game. I had one card left in my deck. I was going to be so mad if he drew flamestrike #4.

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

I played a lot of mechmage last season and did ok with it.

The main issue with mechmage is that it pretty much loses the instant it loses control of the board past turn 3.

I'm running a mid-rangey paladin right now that matches up pretty good against it. AoE clears and decks that jockey for board control from T1 do well against mechmage.

[AngryPidgeon]

I hate priest. There has never been a time in ranked play in HS where I see a priest and don't vomit a little. I hate it more than undertaker tempo hunter.

Also, specifically, zombie chow openings into mech mage (and mech shaman too) are really really strong.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think people running Priest with Shrinkmeisters are doing it wrong. That is actually just a bad card that people see and go OOOO COMBO but it's just wasting deck space.

You might be right. I definitely wouldn't run more than one. Combo cards like this are usually not worth running 2 since drawing both of them could mean dead cards in your hand. I want to try priest again. I don't want to craft voljin though and he's such a strong standalone card.

I kept trying to run 2 Sword of Justice in all my pally iterations to combo with muster, but I'm doing way better with exactly one in.

[AngryPidgeon]

What's the cheapest reasonable deck right now?

I haven't played much since the Undertaker change other than quests every few days.

Depends what you have. What naxx cards do you have?

I agree with reck. Mech mage/shaman are relatively cheap since the blob of mech cards that make the bread and butter of any mech deck are all commons for the most part.

Dr.boom and Antonidas are the 2 big legendary cards in mech mage but could be replaced. Boom is so strong that he's auto include in anything if you have him.

There is a hunter list on ladder that's pretty good and relatively cheap. Let me find a link...

[AngryPidgeon]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/197999-senx-rank-1-eu

The only legendary cards are boom and loatheb both of which are insanely good standalone cards that get played in everything. No epics here.

Zombie chow, snap jaw, stampeding kodo and explosive /snake trap could replace similar counterparts that you don't have off the top of my hrad. Also rag, cairne, sylvanas could replace boom.

[AngryPidgeon]

Still no plans to nerf Dr. Balanced though.

[AngryPidgeon]

Reck asked about my handlock list, so here it is:

Most handlock lists are pretty similar with only a few differences. 2 of Molten/Mountain/Drake/Belcher/Watcher are pretty core. After that you can tweak the list to your liking.

I saw some people running 1 Chow in some lists and that seems to be working alright. Its the only reliable opening play and it helps curb aggression.

Most handlocks run 2 Antique heal bot, I'm only doing one. I'm running 2 siphons to cover for lost healing potential. There is only one mana difference in the cards and siphon has the potential for fantastic value in other control matches. Healbot is just a tiny body that is sort of useless after play. I think Belcher is the best on-curve T5 play by far anyhow.

Cards I'm not running but could be considered: sylvanas, malganis

I know some lists do 2 Hellfire and 1 Shadowflame but I swear by running 2 shadow flame. I think its extremely strong.

[AngryPidgeon]

Debating cutting BGH from Handlock for Kezan Mystic at this point. FUCK Mages.

Fuck Kezan Mystic. Its about 55% of the reason why I've given up trying to run secrets pally right now.

There are a few hunters and mages floating around, but I'm seeing more druid than anything right now I think. Actually seeing a fairly wide variety recently.

[AngryPidgeon]

I'm playing mid-range pally recently. PRetty fun deck. Hovering around Rank 4, but I think it might get me to legend.

[AngryPidgeon]

Spoiler: Pally list

1 Zombie Chow

1 Equality
1 Haunted Spider
2 ShieldBot
2 Knife Juggler
1 Hoot Hoot Owl

2 Unleash the Dudes
1 Sword of Justice
1 CogHammer
1 Big Gay Hunter
1 Follow ze Rulez

2 Consecration
2 TruevalueChampion
2 Cult Master
1 Defender of Argus

1 Loatheb
2 Quartermaster
1 Harrison
1 Antikill Bot

1 Sylvanas
1 Black Knight

1 Dr. Balanced

1 Put your faith in the P2W

I made this one from scratch although I've seen a slew of pally lists when browsing HearthPwn and such.

The main thing I'm missing is Lay on Hands which I haven't crafted. I'm running double cult master as a sort of replacement for that draw power.

The other weird things I'm running are the 1 SoJ and the 1 Defender of Argus.

I'm running defender and Cult Master because they are great on-curve plays to follow up Unleash the Dudes on T3 a lot of the time. Defender and SoJ give some survivability to the dudes so they can survive until your quartermaster play more often. I LOVE the SoJ against druid. Giving your dudes the extra HP makes them unable to be wrath'd for 1 damage, hero powered for 1 damage, or swiped which seems to always happened. I've tried running 2 SoJ before and that isn't really ideal. This deck is already packed with weapons and getting too many in you hand really limits your options.

If you don't have these cards, some good options to replace similar cost cards would be:

2nd Peacekeeper (Im actually strongly considering making room for it now that I'm facing a lot of Druids).
Lay on Hands, Ragnaros, Cairne, 2nd Coghammer, Sludge Belchers.

[AngryPidgeon]

YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION.

OBLIVION!!!!!!!

That belongs in a museum!

YOU WIN, BUT YOUR WORLD IS STILL DOOMED

[AngryPidgeon]

Jaraxxus does have the most OP concede emote in the game.

[AngryPidgeon]

What the hell is this double zombie chow Rogue I'm fighting against, geez.

[AngryPidgeon]

When is the daily tourney? I see a couple hosted right now that start later.

[AngryPidgeon]

Whatever you do don't make my mistake and craft Gazlowe.

Also don't make my mistake and craft Greenskin.

[AngryPidgeon]

Of those, I'd say Harrison is the most useable off the top of my head.

[AngryPidgeon]

Ya, they are both good. Obviously not playable in as many things though.

[AngryPidgeon]

Also you can TBK your opponent's taunt totem for maximum value!

[AngryPidgeon]

I was losing with mech mage a bit so I swapped to redemption paladin version 13675. I won 2 games and had someone spectate my 3rd and last for the night. Druid ugh. He got a lore out on t3. I'm behind all Gane and struggling not to die. He recombobed lore into gahzrilla at one point. And drops boom and A sky golem. Finally my only play is to put my faith in the ligjt, redemption and pass. He says well played and throws a savage roar. Trion gets redeemed and he sits there for the rest of his turn before throwing a druid of the claw into it to finish it. Somehow I survived a cenarius drop and barely won 2 turns after the tyrion play. I was dead to his 2nd swipe and any force of Nature for like 5 turns.

Put my faith in the light and it's working.

I really like running 2 redemption without any scientists or other secrets. Being able to control what board I play it on is making a big difference

[AngryPidgeon]

Sooooooo,

I was running Face hunter as a joke and recording myself doing it.

And I ended up making it to Legend with Face Hunter.

[AngryPidgeon]

I forgot to record my very last game, although Dan was watching it.

I was up against a hunter.

I had Leper Gnome, Abusive, Knife Juggler, and Snake Trap in my hand.

I told Dan I was thinking about doing it so I coined out the Juggler, which he agreed was best.

Opponent plays a juggler on T2.

I play Snake trap on my T2.

T3 he hits my Juggler, activating snake trap and killing hus juggler before he could finish the attack. He conceded on the spot. I wish I had been recording that, I freaked out a bit.

[AngryPidgeon]

Depends on your deck. If you are playing Face hunter (which is pretty much the only list that runs Abusive), I would probably play it.

Its not ideal, but you need to force some control of the board from T1-4 if possible.

[AngryPidgeon]

Patchwerk loses to Jeeves really hard. It mills him for 3 cards every turn.

[AngryPidgeon]

Yeah Millhouse got played out for me, but that challenge was fun as shit.

Also... the AI is super dumb in this adventure. Like, they keep dropping Dark Iron Dwarfs AFTER they've attacked with all relevant minions.

I noticed the same thing, lol. I squinted at my screen every time too.

[AngryPidgeon]

I beat the first boss with a funny warlock deck. Got Jaraxxus and Sylvanas as my first 2 minions and proceeded to destroy him.

I used Face hunter for the next 2 on normal and that was really easy.

--

On Heroic, my warlock deck took a couple attempts to beat it.
Used miracle druid for the 2nd one aand waited for the millhouse drop.
Used a different Warlock for the 3rd with ironbeaks and a demon control sort of setup.

[AngryPidgeon]

Emperor Thaurissan is completely insane. I'm running a tempo-based Warlock. I've gotten Ysera out on Turn 7 a few times and its absolutely stupid to be able to do that.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think warlock is going to be the best class to abuse Thaurissan since warlock has the best built in card-draw potential and Thaurissan's value increases for each card in your hand every turn that he is in play.

A lot of people around rank 9 seem to have the same idea because I'm seeing a pretty big resurgence of handlock-esque decks, lots with voidcallers. Druids are also all over again with people basically running Ramp but with Tahurissan thrown in. A few pallies, combo warriors and face hunters around.

I'm actually running something similar to what I ran pre-GvG except with less fundertakers and more Thaurissan/Ysera wombos.

Main idea is to grab early board control with Chow/Spider/Egg and then try and get a safe Thaurissan turn as early ass possible. Transition into late game with all the huge drops in the deck. Seems to play really well against warrior, pretty good against druid, decent against paladin. Handlock and Face Hunter are a bit of a tossup and comes down to how appropriate my draws are.

Spoiler:

My list for anyone curious.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think Ysera is pretty much 100% playable again with Thaurissan in the mix.

Getting Ysera out on T8 is bigger than you may think, because she is such a snowball-y win condition on her own.

And a T7 Ysera is just GG 95% of the time.

[AngryPidgeon]

Can confirm, did spectate.

I was hoping Elk would go for epic BM and mill him to death though

[AngryPidgeon]

Black wing tech is amazing. I'm already trying it in a hand lock type thing.

IMp gang boss is pretty insane. I'm running a tempo/zoo deal with it and it's amazing.

[AngryPidgeon]

Blizz still has no intentions to nerf Dr. Boom which is a riot. So op that it makes it into literally everything that isn't Face Hunter since Face Hunter wins by T6 anyways.

Boom is so strong that people run 1xBGH in everything because its expected that your opponent will have a boom for it to be used on. And people can't run other big ATK minions because people run BGH because people run Boom.

So who knows.

They did finally nerf undertaker after saying they wouldn't.

[AngryPidgeon]

I had 1680 dust and couldn't decide on another legendary to craft. My last couple crafts of greenskin and gazlowe are nothing but regret. I keep thinking that I should craft grommash since every warrior deck uses him. But whenever I'm about to do that I remind myself that I don't play warrior ever so why would I craft Grom? Its an infinite cycle of dumbassery from me.

So I've decided that BlackwingTech Warlock is doing pretty well for me.

Spoiler:

I put on Shoes, sang along and crafted:

Spoiler:

No regrets!

[AngryPidgeon]

why craft a blackrock mountain card?

A

gold

BRM card

I couldn't decide on anything actually useful to craft that I would play.

The only way to get gold cards from adventures (naxx/brm) is to craft them. I know I won't craft it and then get a duplicate in a pack shortly after since crafting is the only way to get gold for it.

I have 2x of all rares that are playable and I have ~most~ epics that I care about. At this point its crafting a random legendary or gold cards. I considered Onyxia for Dragon Paladin but Im not sure that'll be useful at all.

[AngryPidgeon]

CHROMAGGUS ON HEROIC IS SUCH DICKS

^ Ya it is. I beat all the others but Chromaggus.

Also mages are a TOTALLY balanced class in arena:

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

Literally Reck? Literally??? I think you mean figuratively.

[AngryPidgeon]

Oh ya Hungry hungry dragon is out now

[AngryPidgeon]

I beat BRM on heroic! The last nefarian fight was pretty hard. I forgot that he kills all of your minions when you finish off Onyxia. Obvious solution: put KT in the deck and slam KT after he does his board clear. Hilarious amounts of profit. Get dunked Nefarian.

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

I finally crafted Grom so I could run Grim Patron warrior even though evidently it doesn't need it.

Pretty fun deck though.

[AngryPidgeon]

^ There is no loss to you if you do poorly anyhow.

Rankings all reset at the end of each month.

[AngryPidgeon]

Ya, IDK. I have Alex and Thalnos in the same tier in my head. Both are very good, but only used in a small handful of decks due to how specialized they are. Freeze mage uses both. Rogue and some shaman use Thalnos. Control warrior (and control decks in general) run Alex but those aren't overly common.

[AngryPidgeon]

You'll just have to run face hunter.

[AngryPidgeon]

I wish they'd given undertaker 3 hp instead of sealing its fate at the bottom of the virtual shoebox.

[AngryPidgeon]

So basically and undertaker with battlecry: deal 2 damage to the enemy hero.

[AngryPidgeon]

Druid is a very consistent class.

Innervate and wildgrowth fit well with most decklists.

[AngryPidgeon]

Warrior is by far the most efficient class to use with Grim Patron though.

[AngryPidgeon]

@Sudo: KJ's link has all the info you need.

To expand on that, in Arena people are drafting way more common cards than not. For this reason you can expect to see significantly more Mirror Entity/Duplicate, Freezing/Exploding, and Avenge/Noble Sacrifice from Mages, Hunters, and Pallies respectively.

Most Paladin secrets are fickle and hard to get value off of. Avenge is the best one and the only one I'd consider at least a good-tier pick. So expect avenge and Noble sacrifice more than the others. Noble sacrifice gets tested for every time you attack.

Hunter secrets are all ok in arena. Freezing and exploding see a lot of time in ranked so they get picked more than the others here. Snipe is ~ok~ but not extremely reliable so it won't be seen as much. Snake trap is amazing but is epic so you will rarely see it in arena. Generally a good idea to use your minions to trade for theirs if they have a secret out. Start with one that you don't mind getting returned to your hand and then trade away all minions that will die to explosive trap if the trap was not freezing.

Mage secrets are hilarious. Iceblock and Spellbender are both subpar and rare in arena. Mirror Entity is probably the most common. Always test for it by playing your weakest minion first. Preferably Zombie Chow. Then if they clone your Chow you can spam "Hello". Ice Barrier is common but its not very good in arena so its rarely picked. Duplicate copies the next minion to die so when in doubt kill a weak minion first. Counterspell sees some play time. If its neither of rthe first 2, test for CS by playing The Coin preferably.

[AngryPidgeon]

I have 1600 dust again. I'm debating Al'Akir/Neptulon/Voljin crafts, because those are the best that I still dont have, but I dont play those classes much. As far as neutral legendaries, Leeroy or Onyxia would be the main ones I don't have.

[AngryPidgeon]

Raggy always hits face.

[AngryPidgeon]

Probably. I never de things but I also played enough to farm most of the cards

[AngryPidgeon]

Did a little bit of ladder yesterday while rotating between 3 different decks after every match. Its the end of the season and I haven't played much, so the competition was still a bit weak for me there (15 -> 10), but thoughts:

I ran Face Hunter, Tempo Paladin, and Handlock*.

I think pally had my strongest winrate but it was all pretty close.

There was a lot of tempo

mage

on the ladder. Super generic stuff, I can't even really think of a label to give it. Lots of mirror entity, Mana Wyrm, FrostBolt, Apprentice, Flamewaker, Water Ele's, and Flamestrikes going around. My decks all did pretty reasonably against this matchup.

Priest

. I hate priest and always will; I don't get how they are considered underpowered for climbing ladder. Against my Handlock, they out-speed me with blademaster or Cleric with buffs out the wazoo. Maybe I really need to have one Owl in my decks for this crap which somehow I didn't include in my Pally/Hand deck at all. Then if I make it to late game they steal my Ysera with Shrinkmeister or Mindcontrol. I had one guy steal Ysera when I had a Sylvanas on the board though (all the whats) so I promptly stole Ysera back on my next turn.

Face Hunter is really just a tossup against priest. Either they get a godlike start with Northshire, Pyros, and AoE or they just die. I think its a matchup that loosely favors priest.

I have issues with paladin where most of my cards are great targets for Cabal and all that as is. Not enough burst to take them out effectively.

Face Hunter

: Handlock ends up being a pretty reasonable matchup although its highly dependent on drawing antikill bots and sludge belchers when you need them. I'm running BlackwingTechs which can help curb early aggression and Moltens-> Sunfury is strong as always into this. Plenty of outs against aggro with my deck.

Face vs Face is pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

Pally into face...I don't think I actually had this matchup happen.


----
Surprising lack of Druids on the ladder.
Lack of shaman not surprising.
Some scattered warlocks were around.
Not very much warrior either, but likely because all those players are at higher than rank 10 :S

[AngryPidgeon]

I'm not actually playing Face Hunter, it's more like Hybrid Hunter.

Hybrid hunter is just face hunter except with a Savannah Highmane in the flex spot.

[AngryPidgeon]

In other news, evidently there is a moderately sized Hearthstone event going on tomorrow at 3pm about 25 mins walk from my work. I've been to the venue before and its pretty nice. I really want to go but I'm going to Vegas for the weekend anyways and I can't leave work that early. Ugh.

Edit 1:Oh shit its next week not this week. Damn I might go then!

Edit 2: And it starts at 2:30, door opens at 2:00.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/19822386/

[AngryPidgeon]

I've been playing Shockadin (Rush Pally) over the past few days.

Its not the most viable deck, but its pretty damn fun. Decklist has been a little volatile, but currently at:

2x Leper Gnome
2x Argent Squire
2x Blessing of Might
2x Abusive Sergeant
1x Redemption
1x Avenge

2x Mad Scientist
2x Shieldbot
2x Haunted Spider
2x Knife Juggler
1x Equality

2x Coghammer
2x Muster the Dudes
2x Divine Favor
1x Bloodknight

2x Consecrate
2x Truevalue Champion

--

I really like Pally secrets so I've been trying to fit them in somehow. The main issue is that things like Redemption have pretty good synergy with Shieldbot but awful synergy with Muster. Avenge is ok but often is only marginal value when you draw it and never has a huge amount of staying power once activated. Redemption doesn't do well with Scientist if you only run a couple secrets, nor does it do well with Sacrifice if you are running that.

The main restrictive thing in this list is the double divine favor which strongly encourages low cost cards. The main idea is to just flood the board with small things and refill your hand with a Favor and finish your opponent off before you run out of cards. I really want to experiment with Kezan, Defender of Argus, Shredder, and a couple other things. I may try swapping out Favor for Blessing of Wisdom and/or Vigil and try a more mid-range list, but I don't want to fall into the standard Pally midrange play which I fine a bit boring. Also, you can just youtube search for "Trump midrange Pally" on how to do that.

Techs / one of's: Bloodknight is hilarious and I have no regrets about running one. Its a flatout game winner sometimes if your opponent opens with an annoy-o-tron or shieldbot. Equality is pretty strong in some situations and completely useless in others. I was running 2 for a while but its really bad when you get stuck with 2 of them early on when you don't need them. Still its a great card, combos with Consecrate, and is the best removal I have for things like taunted molten giants.

I was surprised to see that Midrange lists don't auto-include coghammer. I think the reason for this is that there are already 4 weapons inside muster/champion that need the slot more. Coghammer is really strong though and I find it very helpful against face hunters in particular. Gives another shield option for blood knight and forces people to trigger my secrets instead of just hitting face. Reasonable amount of damage on it for just hitting face as well. I wasn't running Muster at first, but decided that the Juggle + muster combo is too good and Muster is pretty high value on its own anyways even if it messes with the value of redemption.


--

Warrior is a terrible matchup for this deck regardless of what type. Face hunter is a little dependent on their draws, If they get explosive traps out, its going to suck, but otherwise this deck can curb their aggression and maintain the board enough to win pretty handily. Zoolock/Demonlock is a pretty bad matchup. They tend to get more value out of their cards, oftentimes don't have a big enough hand for good Favor plays, and prevent you from hitting face hard with things like DoA and voidcaller. Control/Hand Warlock is an amazing matchup though and I won pretty much all of those. They are too slow to deal with the early sticky aggression. Even if they start dropping Hellfires and Belchers, its too little to late if you have a good start.

[AngryPidgeon]

I ran paladin a bit on ladder this weekend, in another attempt to revive secrets/redemption pally This list was a bit rocky, but I ended up on a pretty big win streak.



In general, this list is very similar to other mid-range paladin lists but with a few differences. Most all paladins run 2x Muster for Battle. Muster

is

a strong card on its own and its difficult to justify not running a card thats high value on its own. Coghammer is pretty much an

alternative

to Muster. They are both 3-drops and weapons. Its sort of difficult to put both in for this reason. I didn't want muster because having 1/1s on the board makes redemption harder to play.

The core of the minion-curve in this deck is fairly standard (haunted creepers being only a little abnormal), but there are a lot more specific counters to things. Having them in the deck is betting on seeing each individual thing a certain amount. Kezan, BloodKnight, BGH, Harrison are all mediocre cards with extreme bids for value. There are some general counters in the deck for face decks (chiefly belcher and healbot). With all these specific and general counters, I ended up running Blessing of Wisdom for consistency in drawing into them. Blessing on ArgentSquire/Shieldbot is sort of sticky and also has potential for extreme value against slower decks that can't stop them early on. Handlock in particular seemed to struggle with early BoW/Divineshield plays.

Redemption is definitely the card that requires the most playing around, depending on what you are up against.

Fun list though!, might try for legend with this.

[AngryPidgeon]

Why the Piloted Sky Golem?
If you use so many tech cards you might aswell use a Black Knight for example, imo.

PSG fits well with redemption. Redeeming a PSG is pretty high value and PSG generally needs to be checked because it does a lot of damage.

Its a strong aggressive play and its sticky on top of that, making it good against AoE clears. Its good for decks like Rogue and Warrior that you generally want to kill as quickly as possible. while also dodging things like Brawl/BladeFlurry

Black knight...Might be ok here if I were seeing a lot of taunts. Trying to think how many I'm seeing. Currently, most of the decks I end up against have been aggro so Black Knight would be too slow to be extremely useful. I do have trouble with druids and TBK would be helpful against those. Might try slipping that in.

[AngryPidgeon]

I have enough dust to craft a legendary - do I get Dr Boom or wait until the expansion hits?

I don't see Dr.Boom becoming any less good of a card in the near future. And if blizz does directly nerf him, then you can DE for full dust.

[AngryPidgeon]

@venmar: Ive tried quite a few pally variants over the last few months. It's been hard to find a list that holds up. Also I don't own any lay on hands which is pretty common.

I really hope token pally is viable after the TGT release. The card that is 3 for 3/3 with inspire to summon a dude seems decent. Also the new secret that gives all minions +1/+1. Might try for full tokens with creeper, muster, violet teacher, argus.

Kind of tried that before but it was too slow to out race aggro decks and had a hard time not getting out valued by control.

[AngryPidgeon]

I heard you liked minions. So we put minions in your minions so you can summon minions while you summon minions.

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

Supposedly its terrible in arena. At least according to that one Arena expert guy whose name I can't recall. I always thought it was ~ok~, but mostly in mage since you can use your hero power to make more every turn potentially.

[AngryPidgeon]

Lock and Load is going to be an absolutely insane card.

[AngryPidgeon]

Shit is getting real in this arena run.

[AngryPidgeon]

RNGesus guide me, my hands are actually shaking a bit >.>

[AngryPidgeon]

Only beasts are above deceit!

[AngryPidgeon]

Ugh I got a quest to win 5 tavern brawls. I hate this brawl so much why am I grinding this. fucking hunter every time.

[AngryPidgeon]

I didn't order the 50 packs but I did have gold saved up for 30 of them (and a little left over to keep funding arena runs).

I opened 30 packs and got 0 legendaries. Meanwhile this guy who added me after a ladder game opened up 4 legendaries while I was opening my dust.

QQ.

[AngryPidgeon]

I will be taking my frustration out with my Pre-TGT arena mage deck which has a pyroblast and 2 fireballs. Suck it everyone who drew legendaries.

[AngryPidgeon]

I'm probably about to find out, but are packs rewarded from the arena random now? I imagine they changed it from being GvG.

[AngryPidgeon]

I got a TGT pack and a lot of gold. Not sure if arena always gives TGT or random, probably always TGT?

[AngryPidgeon]

Apparently Im using all my legendary luck up in arena.

I've drafted DrBoom twice in the past 3 runs.

My current deck has Nexus champion Saraad and Dr.Boom.

[AngryPidgeon]

And I need to stop alt-slipping >.>

[AngryPidgeon]

^ If you need any pointers, I'm sure we'd be happy to help.

@Sudo: Concerned about he lack of 5-drops and Belchers in that decklist. Twiligh guardian is a 3/6 taunt? Thats pretty good. Id still think you'd want something for a dedicated T5 play though.

[AngryPidgeon]

Now that's what I call value!

I think Saraad is going to be one of the biggest legendaries from this set. Not quite drboom status, but not too far off. Anything that isn't just facefaceface can run it I think. Especially mage.

[AngryPidgeon]

Craft flame leviathan obv

/s

/s

/s

[AngryPidgeon]

I built pirate rogue :S

[AngryPidgeon]

Annnnnnd my epic reward for end of the month was ....

Golden farsights >.>

I already had one before that. Thanks, Obama.

[AngryPidgeon]

What is last call?

[AngryPidgeon]

Ive been trying to find a way to turn my pretty good Arena performance into a more consistent ranked performance.

I ended up making this tempo mage list that so far has been actually pretty good. I've done a bit of tweaking on it since I made it. Its got me to rank 10 so far this month (1 day in).

The only thing not visible on my list is Dr. Boom.

Spoiler: list

After playing a bit with this, I looked up some other tempo lists to see differences.

Kvalidir Raider and Nexus Champion are never used in tempo. I actually really like these. Raider is basically just a neutral floating watcher but mage's hero power grants tempo in addition to the tempo Raider gets and its a pretty strong win condition if you can curve into it with your early tempo. Nexus champion draws spells which obviously have synergy with Antonidas and Waker regardless of what you draw. Similar to why people are running spellslinger, but my deck curves a bit too slow for spellslinger imo.

Arcane Explosion is another never played card but I've actually had good results. I put it in after realizing that my by-far worst matchup was hard aggro, especially face hunter. Clearing out Haunted-Creeper-lings and all the standard 1 HP minions (abusive sergeant, worgen, leper gnome, muster for battle) was really helping the matchup versus paladin and face hunter.

I have a lot of faith in Fallen Hero. I realized at some point that its very comparable to a steamwheedle sniper which doesn't see play time (even by me), but I've liked it so far. It isn't a staple card. I wont always keep it in my opening hand but if I expect opponents to be dropping King's Elekk or Knife Juggler, I will. I'm not entirely sure why I still think this card is more worthy of play than Steamwheedle other than some nebulous bit of deck/class synergy to do with being a mage, but I still like it.

I was originally running 2 Mirror Entity and 1 Counterspell but people always play around Mirror Entity and I got sick of getting Darnassus Aspirants with it. Counterspell seems really strong in the current meta. Muster for battle is in every single pally deck and a lot of people are playing pally. Removing that early tempo is really strong. Its also a great card late game to protect win conditions like Kvaldir and Antonidas.

[AngryPidgeon]

Steamwheedle Sniper is a good card in the wrong class. Fallen Hero is fine because the hero synergizes with it better.

Maybe so. I've noticed that this deck wins by aggressively throwing removal early and then trying to develop strong mid/late cards safely. Hunter might just have less reliable finishers or early removal.

I was running a lot of Kezan until this deck. I might try adding it back since there is still a fairly large amount of secrets out there.

[AngryPidgeon]

All paladins run 4 weapons in them, so taking Harrison out to counter secrets pally would be more of a side-grade.

[AngryPidgeon]

Ya I meant Muster since pallies always run 2x of them.

Harrison is a bit slow to gain much off of it other than card advantage though which can be too little too late.

[AngryPidgeon]

Im considering going to double portal and double effigy. Effigy gets you a minion based on the base cost. Getting portal into an early high cost minion and getting effigy out is really hard to stop.

[AngryPidgeon]

I only haven't done that because this deck has been pretty damn consistent so far.

[AngryPidgeon]

So this just happened.

T1: Coin -> Mad Scientist
T2: Unstable portal into a 3 mana Mekatorque
T3: Mekatorque into a Poultryizer(turns a minion into a 1/1 chicken every turn). Mad Scientist dies and summons effigy.
His T3: Kills Mekatorque -> Effigy summon Skeletal Knight -> Concede

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

My guess is either a rage quit from misplaying effigy or poultry zapped his minion and I didn't see the animation yet.

[AngryPidgeon]

Fun fact I think it can poultrize itself.

[AngryPidgeon]

fuck it. Every other match is hunter or paladin. Im running 2 kezans again.

[AngryPidgeon]

^ That looks like a pretty standard face hunter list. I made it to legend with face hunter like 3 months ago. I was running snaketrap and one highmane over the 2nd ArcaneGolem and Wolfrider(?) I think.

I think I ran double ironbeak? That one depends on how many taunts you are seeing I guess. Which has been a little bit less recently since the pallies and hunters aren't running any. If you are fighting a lot of dragon priests then it might be worth 2.

[AngryPidgeon]

Got to rank 6 after bouncing around a bit.

When in doubt, run mech mage I suppose >.>

Antonidas is the last card in that.

Spoiler:

[AngryPidgeon]

Reck! <3 I didn't realize you could Alex yourself as Rag.

[AngryPidgeon]

Can I just say.

Holy shit the amount of paladin on the ladder is ridiculous.

[AngryPidgeon]

Ya, in tempo mage saving coin for T3 flamewaker plays is really important against aggro decks.

[AngryPidgeon]

Its because Blizzard is really stubborn about patching cards. Dr. Boom is overturned and there aren't many good alternatives for Turn 7 plays (at least non class-specific ones).

Since blizzard won't nerf it, its overtuned, and it lacks competition for its mana cost, it will continue to be used in any deck that can feasibly run a 7-drop.

[AngryPidgeon]

I have just crafted Alex and a Doomsayer a month ago and was so happy with my Freeze Mage... And then Reno Jackson comes... RIP Freeze Mage

Reno is like...meant for freeze mage. Seriously run it in freeze mage. Thats it.

[AngryPidgeon]

It's good to climb ladder with because it's both super strong AND gets through games quickly.

Shaman is strong? What on earth happened in the last week while I was away.

[AngryPidgeon]

Though I have been wanting to try a hilarious Brann shaman deck with abusives and that new 2 random damage card. Also eggs and defender of Argus. Basically just your standard midrange shaman list with emphasis on battle cry mechanics

[AngryPidgeon]

I feel the game is designed to be non-interactive...

(Insert Ben Brode copypasta here)

[AngryPidgeon]

Did the new wing come out?

The new tavern brawl is really fun.

[AngryPidgeon]

I finally gave up on trying to run gimmick paladin in favor of a more normal midrange list.

Why can't I hold all these stars



Only slightly gimmicky thing Im doing now is 1x of Volcanic Drake, Dragon Consort, and Ysera.

No ragrets though, they've been curving out fine just fine.

[AngryPidgeon]

Spoiler: List I've been running

1x Zombie Chow

2x ShieldBot
1x Haunted Creeper
1x Ironbeak
2x Juggler
1x Equality

2x Muster the dudes
1x Follow the rules

2x Piloted Shredder
2x Keeper of uldaman (I mean seriously blizzard?)
1x Truevalue Champion (sadly not as value as it used to be)
2x Consecration
1x Blessing of Kings

1x Loatheb
1x Dragon Escort
2x Anti Kill Bot
1x Harrison Jones

1x Volcanic Drake
1x Sylvanas (because fuck you, insert op on-curve legendaries from this point down)

1x Dr.Boom

1x Dr. Tirion
1x Lay on Hands

1x Dr. Ysera, M.D. PhD

This could probably be optimized. Im the only person running any of those dragons in any deck like this right now. So far its been pretty good though. The strategy is simple enough. Hard mulligan for Zombie Chow and Shieldbots. The ideal T1->T3 is Chow, Shieldbot/spiders, Muster. Then after that there are a lot more options available once you hit turn 4 and the ones you want to play depend on the matchup.

Keeping Creeper is fine, and keeping 2 2-drops is fine if you are going second. Play for the board as much as possible. Don't over-extend against super clear decks like Warrior and Freeze, but no one is playing that shit anyways.

I pulled out 2 wins against Renolocks last night after they healed for over 20 with a reno drop, so the deck definitely has enough meat to push through to late game.

Some people only run 1 keeper of uldaman but basically I see KoU as a more versatile (and therefore better) version of BGH. Run that shit. Don't not run that shit. Truesilver is sadly only really necessary to have one of. All the things it was strong against are a bit less common since minions are now stickier or dispersed in their value. Also its not that great against face decks which there are plenty of floating around.

I'd consider adding a second peacekeeper and zombie chow. PEacekeeper is just really good overall, and there is a lot of aggro out there so Zombie chow is kind of worth it. Especially when you have a good closing line up in Sylvanas->Boom->Tirion->Ysera

[AngryPidgeon]

I think you mean techies is the best hero ever made.


Im always reluctant to run 2 chow since they aren't good against control. Id be more inclined to make room for a belcher I think. Also, I only have one gold chow :p

[AngryPidgeon]

I try to play KT every now and then.

Also Avenge is from Classic, not Naxx

[AngryPidgeon]

Huh, so it is Naxx. All that text makes the symbol hard to see :S

[AngryPidgeon]

I want to make wailing soul work so much.

Not sure what to do with it though.

I tried anima golem warlock at one point, but it was rather mediocre.

[AngryPidgeon]

Sylvanas is good in mid-range pally.

[AngryPidgeon]

Yes, let the hate flow through you.

Then run paladin.

[AngryPidgeon]

The new Greeting emotes is taking my BM to the next level.

Drop Dr. Boom

Happy Feast of Winterveil, Champion!

[AngryPidgeon]

I just threw together a Desert Camel deck and played it with moderate success. Finley is pretty great for hunter.

[AngryPidgeon]

I like Reno because he makes control actually viable by increasing game length, and also makes sure that "aggro" means "actually aggro and has to kill you in 5 turns" instead of "play things that get damage value consistently".

I'm tempted to run Reno-Hunter after my foray with Camel last night.

I'm not sure what list I'd run. My main issue with hunter is that they have so many cookies, the decks tend to build themselves for like 80% of the card slots.

[AngryPidgeon]

And by cookies I mean "high value, standalone class cards"

[AngryPidgeon]

There's a reason hunter is pretty much stone unplayable right now.

[AngryPidgeon]

Because of this, Reno just straight nerfs like 40% of the format. It is deeply unhealthy for the game.

Ya... I kind of like the card since its at least breaking the mold on some of Blizz's previous catastrophes (Shredder, Boom, Muster).

I'd love to see Blizzard managing a national park.

"Ok guys the deer are eating all the grass what do we do?"

"Well we can import some wolves from Siberia, they should eat most of the deer"

"YOU ARE GETTING A PROMOTION"

[AngryPidgeon]

It doesn't have to be "zoo" like.

The problem with control-y hunter decks is that the hero power doesn't really offer you anything in most matchups whereas Paladins can fart out value every turn if needed, priests and warriors can sustain against aggro, and Warlocks can get card advantage.

Finley turns a mostly useless power into something very useful. I beat a face hunter by Finley'ing into Lesser Heal. I beat two warriors by getting life tap which is excellent against control warrior.

Hunter has some strong and flexible cards, that isn't its biggest issue as a class.

[AngryPidgeon]

huh, I might go back and include Justicar in my Reno hunter list.

[AngryPidgeon]

Paladin was at the top of arena statistics last time I checked. I agree its strong. I still prefer picking the old classic: mage. Seem to have better luck with it.

[AngryPidgeon]

I definitely have more 12 wins and also 12-1 wins with mage than any other class at least.

[AngryPidgeon]

People run it in priest to counter aggro and combo it with divine spirit / inner fire.

[AngryPidgeon]

Deathlord -> Hunters Mark -> Savannah Highmane -> My Apologies

[AngryPidgeon]

sort of.
There are "hybrid" variants of face hunter. The 'hybrid' variant is what got me to legend the last two times I pushed for it.

Im not sure what is in a typical hybrid list, but I run 1 highmane in it. I was also running Snake trap and flare. I think I had 0 Wolfriders and 1 Arcane Golem in that, so thats probably what I cut for it.

[AngryPidgeon]

^ Finley or riot.

[AngryPidgeon]

Spoiler: image

Guess Im going to try this in ranked blind and see whats up; definitely a bit different from my previous list.

I've found Flare to be useful, but it really is a call based on what you are seeing played.

Paladin, Hunter, Mage, and a little bit druid (it reveals shade of Naxx) make it worth it. I havent seen that many of any of these around so I didnt put it in the list here.

[AngryPidgeon]

EBWODP: And it now has a 100% winrate at 1-0.

Back to work for now

[AngryPidgeon]

Fiiine I'll craft another golden exploding and UTH : P

[AngryPidgeon]

If its on the computer my guess woulD be that you neeD to upDate your graphics carD Drivers.

In the meanwhile, try loaDing up battle.net, clicking on the gear that says game settings:

Whats with your D?

[AngryPidgeon]

I would like to try my hand at a control deck, but they require too many expensive cards (and I don't like disenchanting shit that isn't excess)

Try priest?

I think its relatively inexpensive. It doesnt need any class legendaries at least. Voljin is good but not required.

[AngryPidgeon]

Ya well that is used in literally everything. Stop worrying and learn to love the boom.

[AngryPidgeon]

Ya im not a huge fan of conquest. It was kind of interesting at first, but there are better formats.

[AngryPidgeon]

That should be easy to fix.

No Aggro. Control only. Final Destination.