Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 44  All

Author Topic: Constructed General Discussion  (Read 270483 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #75 on: July 11, 2014, 11:20:10 am »
0

Yeah, I guess you do have a better matchup against zoo, but Leper Gnome goes against the philosophy of Zoo (and I've made Leper Gnome mistake before).
What I mean is, while yes standard zoo is focused on board control and Leper Gnome does not help much with that (apart from being a 1-drop), with some changes the deck can increase its focus on face damage, and there Leper Gnome fits well, such as this: http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/constructed-strategy/458017-eroms-16hp-lock-guide. (I haven't tried it, so I can't say whether it's any good.) Maybe such a deck wouldn't correctly be called "zoo".
Logged

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #76 on: July 11, 2014, 11:27:11 am »
0

Yeah, when you have DG in hand, you pretty much want to draw something that you can play so that you can slam DG (like, 2 drop if you have 7 mana).
Logged

ashersky

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2343
  • 2013/2014/2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
  • Respect: +1517
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #77 on: July 13, 2014, 03:28:05 am »
0

Yeah, I guess you do have a better matchup against zoo, but Leper Gnome goes against the philosophy of Zoo (and I've made Leper Gnome mistake before).
What I mean is, while yes standard zoo is focused on board control and Leper Gnome does not help much with that (apart from being a 1-drop), with some changes the deck can increase its focus on face damage, and there Leper Gnome fits well, such as this: http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/constructed-strategy/458017-eroms-16hp-lock-guide. (I haven't tried it, so I can't say whether it's any good.) Maybe such a deck wouldn't correctly be called "zoo".

Just tried it out, had to replace Leeroy with DG and one juggler.  Went 4-1 so far.
Logged
f.ds Mafia Board Moderator

2013, 2014, 2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
2015 f.ds Representative, World Forum Mafia Championships
2013, 2014 Mafia Player of the Year (Tie)

11x MVP: M30, M83, ZM16, M25, M38, M61, M76, RMM5, RMM41, RMM46, M51

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #78 on: July 13, 2014, 11:08:18 am »
0

Yeah, I guess you do have a better matchup against zoo, but Leper Gnome goes against the philosophy of Zoo (and I've made Leper Gnome mistake before).
What I mean is, while yes standard zoo is focused on board control and Leper Gnome does not help much with that (apart from being a 1-drop), with some changes the deck can increase its focus on face damage, and there Leper Gnome fits well, such as this: http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/constructed-strategy/458017-eroms-16hp-lock-guide. (I haven't tried it, so I can't say whether it's any good.) Maybe such a deck wouldn't correctly be called "zoo".

I've been playing some casual where I've seen tons of zoo decks. I'm playing Priest in casual, and I always beat "zoo" decks that go for the face, while zoo decks that go for control are like playing a normal game.
Logged

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #79 on: July 13, 2014, 03:20:52 pm »
0

An interested constructed trend in zoo is the replacement of Mortal Coil by Elven Archer. I say "trend" because if you look at older zoo decks, they would typically run Mortal Coil, such as in Reynad's original popularization from February and the zoo Kolento was playing in April, whereas Kolento's recent deck runs Archer instead.

I didn't realize before how similar these two cards are, but if you think of them as both doing 1 targeted damage, then it makes sense. Here's a comparison.

Legal targets for 1 damage
Mortal Coil: Minions only.
Archer: Any character.
Note: 1 face damage is only rarely useful, but it does sometimes win games.
Edge: Archer slightly.

Bonus (beyond doing 1 damage)
Mortal Coil: Draw a card.
Elven Archer: Put a 1/1 on the board.
Note: Coil's bonus is basically Warlock's hero power, and Archer's bonus basically Paladin's hero power. Warlock's hero power is better, but since you're playing Warlock, you already have access to it.
Edge: About even.

Bonus condition
Mortal Coil: Must kill the target minion.
Elven Archer: Unconditional.
Note: There are two important cases where you may not be able to kill the minion with the damage: popping Divine Shield on 2+ health minions and activating your own Amani Berserkers. Otherwise, you can order the damage so that the Coil kills the minion. Divine Shield on 2+ health minions is relevant in the mirror (because of buffs) and against decks running Sunwalkers. (Against an empty board is also a case but you usually don't want to play Archer in that situation unless you're trying to clear your hand for Doomguard/Soulfire.)
Edge: Archer easily.
Logged

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #80 on: July 13, 2014, 03:41:09 pm »
0

I don't think Coil is good in Zoo decks, or at least it doesn't really help keep control of the board. You aren't searching for cards like in a handlock deck, you just need minion presence, so I agree that Archer easily beats Coil for typical zoo decks.
Logged

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #81 on: July 13, 2014, 04:09:45 pm »
0

As I understand it, Coil is mostly in zoo to help with the mirror.
Logged

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #82 on: July 18, 2014, 06:49:48 am »
0

Is control Rogue a thing?

Cuz a guy just assassinated my Doom Guard.
Nearly costed me the game.
Logged

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #83 on: July 18, 2014, 07:33:16 am »
0

Is control Rogue a thing?

Cuz a guy just assassinated my Doom Guard.
Nearly costed me the game.

My Rogue for doing quests is control ish. It does pretty well against Zoo with all the early Si;agent and backstab stuff +hero power. Plus yeah, killing those Zoomguards is fun.
Logged

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #84 on: July 18, 2014, 08:10:52 am »
+4

I've just hit


Playing zoolock, here's the list:


89-59 zoolock stats. (quite worse if I include other things I've played before zoolock this month).
Logged

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #85 on: July 18, 2014, 11:23:40 am »
0

Nice. Since you're running Amani Berserker, I propose replacing the coils with archers, since they can activate the berserker to trade with 5 health minions, but also based off the analysis in my earlier post http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11325.msg399021#msg399021 that archer may be better in general.
Logged

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #86 on: July 18, 2014, 07:14:53 pm »
0

I didn't try it, so I'm just speculating, but Archer seems worse to me than Coil.

Ok, I mean, if you go with things that "one can do and other cant":

Archer:
Can pop shield and leave 1/1 body. (best vs Sunwalker)
Can activate Amani and leave 1/1 body. (though I only play 1 Amani)
Can shoot face.
Sometimes you have Coil and Doomguard/0 mana burn in hand and you don't really want to draw as you are going to discard that card anyway.

Coil:
Efficiently makes your deck 2 cards thinner (Flare effect) and can more  dig for that one card that you need (Doomguard/burn/Wolf/Sargent usualy). With hero power, you can dig for 3.
Can kill your own creature when you know your enemy is going to board-clear you to draw and card and get rid of what is usually a bad card in such matchups.


So, Archer seems to have a bit of a edge, but..
If you ignore these edge cases, and go for the primary use of the card (finish 1 hp enemies) which you do 90% of the time.. Coil wins hands down IMO.
I mean, Archer seems to be like a Coil that always draws WISP. And I don't want to draw wisp almost ever. You want to draw your strong cards.
Your comparison with Paladin/Lock powers is wrong -this doesn't cost you life, and Lock power IS WAY better in your deck, as your deck is made to abuse that power and to be able to put 2 strong cheap bodies each and every turn. Coil allows that. 1/1 is not a strong body.
And this is way more important that the little bit of versatility that Archer gives, I think.

As I said, this is without playing the card. I might try to to play it and prove myself wrong, but not sure. (I also didn't like Mukla in Zoo, FWIW).
Logged

markusin

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3846
  • Shuffle iT Username: markusin
  • I also switched from Starcraft
  • Respect: +2437
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #87 on: July 18, 2014, 08:15:05 pm »
0

Does anyone feel like you find harder opponents in Casual mode than in Ranked Mode? Ranked mode has a steadily increasing strength of players as you go up the ladder, but at Level 15 or so on ladder I find all sorts of crazy legendary decks in Casual, or at least decks that are no less standard-good than what you find on ladder.

Also, I finally got around to building a basic Mage deck to complete my quests. It ended up looking like this:


I'm quite surprised at how well it's done so far. I won 5 games in a row with it, bringing me from rank 14 to rank 11. 2-3 of those games were against Handlock. I'm guessing burn Mage plays favourably against Handlock?

I have no Idea why I didn't throw in an Azure Drake in there, but I'll add one somehow next time I play this deck. One thing I noticed is how good it feels to NOT go nuts powering the wyrm. There really is no need going Wyrm->Coin->Image on turn 1. If you need the extra attack, you can do Coin-Image next turn, but more likely the wyrm dies to frostbolt or wrath or something.
Logged

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #88 on: July 19, 2014, 03:27:23 am »
0

I'd say that Burn Mage has favorable matchup against Handlock. Handlock's main thing is that he can get low HP and than put giants and taunt up, winning soonafter; Freeze Mage punishes that cuz his spells can finish up even through taunts.
Logged

Drab Emordnilap

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1832
  • Shuffle iT Username: Drab Emordnilap
  • Luther Bell Hendricks V
  • Respect: +1886
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #89 on: July 19, 2014, 09:24:58 am »
0

I didn't try it, so I'm just speculating, but Archer seems worse to me than Coil.

Ok, I mean, if you go with things that "one can do and other cant":

Archer:
Can pop shield and leave 1/1 body. (best vs Sunwalker)
Can activate Amani and leave 1/1 body. (though I only play 1 Amani)
Can shoot face.
Sometimes you have Coil and Doomguard/0 mana burn in hand and you don't really want to draw as you are going to discard that card anyway.

Coil:
Efficiently makes your deck 2 cards thinner (Flare effect) and can more  dig for that one card that you need (Doomguard/burn/Wolf/Sargent usualy). With hero power, you can dig for 3.
Can kill your own creature when you know your enemy is going to board-clear you to draw and card and get rid of what is usually a bad card in such matchups.


So, Archer seems to have a bit of a edge, but..
If you ignore these edge cases, and go for the primary use of the card (finish 1 hp enemies) which you do 90% of the time.. Coil wins hands down IMO.
I mean, Archer seems to be like a Coil that always draws WISP. And I don't want to draw wisp almost ever. You want to draw your strong cards.
Your comparison with Paladin/Lock powers is wrong -this doesn't cost you life, and Lock power IS WAY better in your deck, as your deck is made to abuse that power and to be able to put 2 strong cheap bodies each and every turn. Coil allows that. 1/1 is not a strong body.
And this is way more important that the little bit of versatility that Archer gives, I think.

As I said, this is without playing the card. I might try to to play it and prove myself wrong, but not sure. (I also didn't like Mukla in Zoo, FWIW).

An activated Mortal Coil is better than Elvish Archer, but obviously an unactivated one is worse. Elvish Archer gets stuck in your hand less often.

Not to say it's always better. It depends on the deck and matchup. Honestly I would probably play one of each so that if you draw both you have more flexibility.
Logged

markusin

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3846
  • Shuffle iT Username: markusin
  • I also switched from Starcraft
  • Respect: +2437
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #90 on: July 19, 2014, 10:20:08 am »
0

I'd say that Burn Mage has favorable matchup against Handlock. Handlock's main thing is that he can get low HP and than put giants and taunt up, winning soonafter; Freeze Mage punishes that cuz his spells can finish up even through taunts.
I was noticing that my wins vs. Handlock happened really quickly, like turn 6 or 7 (before even the possibility of Jaraxxus). My deck has more early game aggression (patially because I don't have many good late-game minions in my collection). The Warlock's own hero ability helps in getting the Warlock down to the dangerous HP<15 state. At that point, I can use Polymorph to get through 1 round of taunts and then next turn I can Freball/Frostbolt/HeroPower for the finish. The Faceless also finds lots of good targets against Handlock.
Logged

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #91 on: July 19, 2014, 11:17:06 am »
0

I mean, Archer seems to be like a Coil that always draws WISP. And I don't want to draw wisp almost ever. You want to draw your strong cards.
Very nice analysis. OK, this definitely convinces me that activated coil is better than archer.

About Mukla, even though I kinda like him in zoo, he's pretty marginal. There are a significant number of situations where I don't want to play him. The reason I keep him in is: he's great when played on curve except in the mirror, and he's great to drop when your opponent just wiped everything off the board, because he immediately re-establishes a hard-to-remove board presence.
Logged

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #92 on: July 19, 2014, 01:23:39 pm »
0

I agree with mostly everyhing about Mukla (on curve he is a monster, esp as you use other minions to trade with anything he puts, even buffed), but later in game there are too many situations when I find myself unwilling to play him, so I dropped him.
Logged

ashersky

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2343
  • 2013/2014/2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
  • Respect: +1517
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #93 on: July 19, 2014, 07:38:12 pm »
0

Faced my very first Golden Hero today.  Golden Mage...rank 16?  How do you win 500 ranked and sit at 16?
Logged
f.ds Mafia Board Moderator

2013, 2014, 2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
2015 f.ds Representative, World Forum Mafia Championships
2013, 2014 Mafia Player of the Year (Tie)

11x MVP: M30, M83, ZM16, M25, M38, M61, M76, RMM5, RMM41, RMM46, M51

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #94 on: July 19, 2014, 08:40:47 pm »
0

Does anyone feel like you find harder opponents in Casual mode than in Ranked Mode? Ranked mode has a steadily increasing strength of players as you go up the ladder, but at Level 15 or so on ladder I find all sorts of crazy legendary decks in Casual, or at least decks that are no less standard-good than what you find on ladder.
Casual is much more unpredictable because high ranked players don't want to lose their stars playing crazy decks in ranked, but will play them in casual instead. ranked is a bunch of similar decks mostly.

Faced my very first Golden Hero today.  Golden Mage...rank 16?  How do you win 500 ranked and sit at 16?

Ranks reset every month. He probably played a lot in previous months but not that much yet this month.
Logged

ashersky

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2343
  • 2013/2014/2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
  • Respect: +1517
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #95 on: July 19, 2014, 09:46:51 pm »
0

Quote from: HiveMindEmulator

Faced my very first Golden Hero today.  Golden Mage...rank 16?  How do you win 500 ranked and sit at 16?

Ranks reset every month. He probably played a lot in previous months but not that much yet this month.

I thought that at first, but the month is 2/3 gone.  Maybe he was VLA.
Logged
f.ds Mafia Board Moderator

2013, 2014, 2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
2015 f.ds Representative, World Forum Mafia Championships
2013, 2014 Mafia Player of the Year (Tie)

11x MVP: M30, M83, ZM16, M25, M38, M61, M76, RMM5, RMM41, RMM46, M51

Grujah

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2237
  • Respect: +1177
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #96 on: July 20, 2014, 06:27:53 am »
0

Does anyone feel like you find harder opponents in Casual mode than in Ranked Mode? Ranked mode has a steadily increasing strength of players as you go up the ladder, but at Level 15 or so on ladder I find all sorts of crazy legendary decks in Casual, or at least decks that are no less standard-good than what you find on ladder.
Casual is much more unpredictable because high ranked players don't want to lose their stars playing crazy decks in ranked, but will play them in casual instead. ranked is a bunch of similar decks mostly.

True this.
I use casual to test out new decks/play out decks that I like but are not as good/do quests with random decks.
(though now in legend I can do these things in ladder too :P)
Logged

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #97 on: July 20, 2014, 04:03:41 pm »
0

To give some idea what the classes at NA high ranks look like this season, here are the stats from the games I played:
Code: [Select]
=== July 2014 Ranks 1-5 Class Distribution

Class Count Percent
Druid 48 25.5%
Hunter 5 2.7%
Mage 13 6.9%
Paladin 5 2.7%
Priest 1 0.5%
Rogue 53 28.2%
Shaman 12 6.4%
Warlock 38 20.2%
Warrior 13 6.9%

Total 188
« Last Edit: July 20, 2014, 04:05:14 pm by blueblimp »
Logged

ashersky

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2343
  • 2013/2014/2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
  • Respect: +1517
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #98 on: July 25, 2014, 10:10:04 pm »
0

Is Coldlight Oracle for draw a thing?  Just had a Druid not otherwise using murlocs go Coldlight-Panda-Coldlight to draw 4 cards...for me too.

Drew lethal and killed him.
Logged
f.ds Mafia Board Moderator

2013, 2014, 2015 Mafia Mod of the Year
2015 f.ds Representative, World Forum Mafia Championships
2013, 2014 Mafia Player of the Year (Tie)

11x MVP: M30, M83, ZM16, M25, M38, M61, M76, RMM5, RMM41, RMM46, M51

ycz6

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 676
  • Respect: +412
    • View Profile
Re: Constructed General Discussion
« Reply #99 on: July 25, 2014, 10:38:10 pm »
0

I think there are some Druid decks which use Coldlight and Naturalize to try to get you to mill (discard) due to handsize. Not particularly common or good, AFAIK.

Edit:
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 10:42:33 pm by ycz6 »
Logged
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 44  All
 

Page created in 0.051 seconds with 21 queries.