Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[HiveMindEmulator]

It blows away Frothing AND Unbound. 

Frothing is completely dealt with by 4 damage worth of removal.  Death priest is dealt with by a minimum of 4 damage worth of removal, but sometimes more than that if you can't easily wipe the rest of the board (which would be particularly hard to do against coined deathpriest into deathpriest in particular).


Unbound Elemental isn't even an auto 2-of like Beserker, so by the transitive property it is worse.

1. 2x Unbound is more common than 2x frothing. I'd say 0x frothing is more common than 2x. (i run 1)
2. Your analysis only looked at health. That's obviously not the only factor involved. Cultist will never kill a yeti. The major weakness of dark cultist is that it's ability is a conditional deathrattle, which means it's not reliable.

I do think cultist is better than frothing, and maybe slightly better than unbound, but it's close enough that there's a discussion, so its not blowing them away. It's not like ancient of lore vs guardian of kings or something.

And the big combo that comes to mind for me is cultist + shade. The stealth helps get off the cultist deathrattle, and a high health shade that can be healed seems pretty powerful. shade priest is the first deck I'm making with naxxramus.

[blueblimp]

I worry that Naxxramas might not do much to bring freshness to arena. For one thing, it doesn't introduce all that many cards: 21 neutrals and 9 class cards, for 30 total, and the original game has 382, so less than 10% of cards offered will be new.

For another, the cards presented so far are mostly unplayable in arena. Of the 5 neutrals revealed so far, only Shade of Naxxramas seems pickable, though to be fair, it seems good. The ratio in the 8 class cards is a little better: Dark Cultist, Anub'ar Ambusher, and Death's Bite should be good. Duplicate is not totally unusable but it's well below average.

I hope they do something else, then, to arena with the expansion to bring a new experience.

[ashersky]

First time on Arena Mastery...odd Warrior deck I just made.  2 Legendaries, though.  Hmmm...

Will update with results.  I tried to follow Trump and Massan's lists, plus Arena Mastery ratings.

http://www.arenamastery.com/arena.php?shared=hs5396764902e59&arena=274760

[Obi Wan Bonogi]

Lol I just encountered ObiWanBonogi in the arena, unless someone else has that name too.

Nope, that's me!

[markusin]

Lol I just encountered ObiWanBonogi in the arena, unless someone else has that name too.

Nope, that's me!

It was an intense game. I think you were a Warlock. I almost lost. Really wasn't expecting to encounter you.

[Kirian]

If this thread gets any longer, we're going to have to get theory to make a subdomain for hs.bgs...

[liopoil]

If this thread gets any longer, we're going to have to get theory to make a subdomain for hs.bgs...

Sorry for being ignorant, but hearthstone isn't even a board game is it? It's just an online game... there's no RL version. Hardly belongs under board game strategy.

[markusin]

If this thread gets any longer, we're going to have to get theory to make a subdomain for hs.bgs...

Sorry for being ignorant, but hearthstone isn't even a board game is it? It's just an online game... there's no RL version. Hardly belongs under board game strategy.

It's not that it's online only, but that it's a collectible card game (CCG). You might still call Settlers of Catan a board game even if there was only an online version. Dominion only uses cards, but it plays out like a board game due to the shared nature of the resources.

[Obi Wan Bonogi]

So you advocate excluding a game on the basis that it is digital-only and not printed on paper?  I don't think that should matter at all.  What should matter: What does the game look and feel like?  How does the game play? Who likes the game?  Is the game good? 

 

[popsofctown]

It blows away Frothing AND Unbound. 

Frothing is completely dealt with by 4 damage worth of removal.  Death priest is dealt with by a minimum of 4 damage worth of removal, but sometimes more than that if you can't easily wipe the rest of the board (which would be particularly hard to do against coined deathpriest into deathpriest in particular).


Unbound Elemental isn't even an auto 2-of like Beserker, so by the transitive property it is worse.

1. 2x Unbound is more common than 2x frothing. I'd say 0x frothing is more common than 2x. (i run 1)
2. Your analysis only looked at health. That's obviously not the only factor involved. Cultist will never kill a yeti. The major weakness of dark cultist is that it's ability is a conditional deathrattle, which means it's not reliable.

I do think cultist is better than frothing, and maybe slightly better than unbound, but it's close enough that there's a discussion, so its not blowing them away. It's not like ancient of lore vs guardian of kings or something.

And the big combo that comes to mind for me is cultist + shade. The stealth helps get off the cultist deathrattle, and a high health shade that can be healed seems pretty powerful. shade priest is the first deck I'm making with naxxramus.

2x Frothing is automatic in aggro warrior.  Maybe you don't think aggro warrior is viable, but in the current environment control warrior is hardly viable either, so...

And as for fighting Yeti, it beats yeti, because it always comes down earlier.  If you play it turn 3 on the play, you can't answer it with a coin yeti efficiently, because the priest can play just about any minion and ram the deathpriest into the yeti and get great value.  2/5 shade, 4/8 yeti, 3/8 Senjin, whatever. 

[blueblimp]

If this thread gets any longer, we're going to have to get theory to make a subdomain for hs.bgs...

Sorry for being ignorant, but hearthstone isn't even a board game is it? It's just an online game... there's no RL version. Hardly belongs under board game strategy.

I think most people would consider Hearthstone in the style of a card game, similar to how Goko Dominion is in the style of a card game even though it isn't a physical card game, but this raises an interesting point: what does it mean to be in the style of a card game / board game?

I think the defining characteristic of games like card games / board games is that for the overwhelming majority of game states, all experienced players know the exact rules that apply and are able to evaluate them to evolve the game state in a reasonable amount of time using simple physical aids (cards, dice, etc.). Of course, for card games / board games, that's a requirement to be able to play the game at all. The reason I say "overwhelming majority" and not "all" game states is that there can be rare situations where even experienced players might not know how to resolve the rules, e.g. Trader/Ironworks.

When you bring that characteristic of physical games to video games, what you get is an allowance for tactical thinking that's very different than for traditional strategy video games. In a game like Starcraft, all play (both tactics and strategy) relies on intuition and experience to predict the outcome, because you don't (and can't) know crucial rules, like how fast workers mine resources and the unit pathing. Even in a turn-based game like Civilization, you might know many of the rules, but it's not feasible to use them to make any non-trivial decisions.

Compare with Hearthstone, where you can often plan out your entire turn mentally before playing it. I like that.

[nkirbit]

It blows away Frothing AND Unbound. 

Frothing is completely dealt with by 4 damage worth of removal.  Death priest is dealt with by a minimum of 4 damage worth of removal, but sometimes more than that if you can't easily wipe the rest of the board (which would be particularly hard to do against coined deathpriest into deathpriest in particular).


Unbound Elemental isn't even an auto 2-of like Beserker, so by the transitive property it is worse.

1. 2x Unbound is more common than 2x frothing. I'd say 0x frothing is more common than 2x. (i run 1)
2. Your analysis only looked at health. That's obviously not the only factor involved. Cultist will never kill a yeti. The major weakness of dark cultist is that it's ability is a conditional deathrattle, which means it's not reliable.

I do think cultist is better than frothing, and maybe slightly better than unbound, but it's close enough that there's a discussion, so its not blowing them away. It's not like ancient of lore vs guardian of kings or something.

And the big combo that comes to mind for me is cultist + shade. The stealth helps get off the cultist deathrattle, and a high health shade that can be healed seems pretty powerful. shade priest is the first deck I'm making with naxxramus.

2x Frothing is automatic in aggro warrior.  Maybe you don't think aggro warrior is viable, but in the current environment control warrior is hardly viable either, so...

And as for fighting Yeti, it beats yeti, because it always comes down earlier.  If you play it turn 3 on the play, you can't answer it with a coin yeti efficiently, because the priest can play just about any minion and ram the deathpriest into the yeti and get great value.  2/5 shade, 4/8 yeti, 3/8 Senjin, whatever.

Why is control warrior hardly viable?  I would imagine that the miracle matchup is pretty good, and it was viable when zoo was as popular as it is now.

I don't know the deck at all, I'm just curious.

[Grujah]

I hardly see Control Warriors right now. There are there, but rare. They are less Locks than before, too, but still they are present.

Decks that I see most are various Druid builds, Miracle Rogue, and both Lock builds.

[Obi Wan Bonogi]

As someone climbing up the ladder with freeze mage I am thankful there aren't more control warriors because it's by FAR my worst matchup.  They are there like you said, but you run in to them a lot less than the other mainstays. 

I'm kind of surprised there isn't more mage, I love having the amazingly great matchup vs Miracle, so I'm going to keep trying to plow ahead with it. 

[Grujah]

Care to share a list? I need a climber.

I only have a burn mage variant..

[popsofctown]

It blows away Frothing AND Unbound. 

Frothing is completely dealt with by 4 damage worth of removal.  Death priest is dealt with by a minimum of 4 damage worth of removal, but sometimes more than that if you can't easily wipe the rest of the board (which would be particularly hard to do against coined deathpriest into deathpriest in particular).


Unbound Elemental isn't even an auto 2-of like Beserker, so by the transitive property it is worse.

1. 2x Unbound is more common than 2x frothing. I'd say 0x frothing is more common than 2x. (i run 1)
2. Your analysis only looked at health. That's obviously not the only factor involved. Cultist will never kill a yeti. The major weakness of dark cultist is that it's ability is a conditional deathrattle, which means it's not reliable.

I do think cultist is better than frothing, and maybe slightly better than unbound, but it's close enough that there's a discussion, so its not blowing them away. It's not like ancient of lore vs guardian of kings or something.

And the big combo that comes to mind for me is cultist + shade. The stealth helps get off the cultist deathrattle, and a high health shade that can be healed seems pretty powerful. shade priest is the first deck I'm making with naxxramus.

2x Frothing is automatic in aggro warrior.  Maybe you don't think aggro warrior is viable, but in the current environment control warrior is hardly viable either, so...

And as for fighting Yeti, it beats yeti, because it always comes down earlier.  If you play it turn 3 on the play, you can't answer it with a coin yeti efficiently, because the priest can play just about any minion and ram the deathpriest into the yeti and get great value.  2/5 shade, 4/8 yeti, 3/8 Senjin, whatever.

Why is control warrior hardly viable?  I would imagine that the miracle matchup is pretty good, and it was viable when zoo was as popular as it is now.

I don't know the deck at all, I'm just curious.

Miracle matchup is no better than 50/50.  Handlock is a bad matchup.  Zoo is a terrible matchup.  Druid is uphill.  Shaman is a terrible matchup.

The main draw to playing control warrior was having a strong matchup against trap hunter, but trap hunter is all but extinct with UTH nerfed.  There's little reason to play control warrior now. 

[popsofctown]

You really shouldn't pick your deck based on countering miracle rogue anyhow.  The weird thing about miracle rogue is that most of its losses come from the deck tripping on itself and not getting auctioneer.  There's little you can do to change the probability of that happening.  It's better to use techs on the matchups that you can actually change, and select a deck to play based on the matchups you can actually change.

[blueblimp]

You really shouldn't pick your deck based on countering miracle rogue anyhow.  The weird thing about miracle rogue is that most of its losses come from the deck tripping on itself and not getting auctioneer.  There's little you can do to change the probability of that happening.  It's better to use techs on the matchups that you can actually change, and select a deck to play based on the matchups you can actually change.

Handlock is VERY good at countering miracle rogue. It's possible to win as the miracle, but you both need good draws and for the handlock to get bad draws. The problem is that the handlock starts throwing down enormous minions just before you're ready to fire your auctioneer combo, so you can't kill or sap them with ideal efficiency, and then just before you're getting to the stage of the game where you want to burst from Leeroy, handlock starts taunting its huge minions, and apart from sap you don't have good tools to get through them.

[Obi Wan Bonogi]

My list is constantly evolving.  I was originally drawn to control mage after seeing Otters super control version in action: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/58909-otter-pops   (Pretty interesting VoD of him climbing legend you can find in the link)  I liked the idea of playing a very precise, long game deck, so I dusted a heap of my collection and whipped together mage.  I didn't like the straight control with only the Alex +Pyro kill for various reasons but mostly because I thought it was easier for opponents to play around, playing smart and saving his life gain made it hard to win.  It was also nearly 100% impossible to beat control warrior with only the alex combo kill.  My matchup with warrior now that I've added more threats isn't great but it's at least possible to sneak out a win. 

I have scoured the net for various lists(even finding a dated list that had all the cards pre-nerf, OMG was mage op back before I was playing).  The main thing I couldn't find was a control oriented mage, that had mana wyrms.  Which is essentially what I am running now.  I also have added some other threats: one Water Elemental, one Molten Giant, one Kirin Tor Mage(This guy is pretty efficient I don't get why he's completely unplayed).  I don't own Archmage Antonidas but I am curious to eventually try a build that incorporates him.  I played a lot with two Doomsayers, but they were cut as I added more threats, and recently started trying out with one Doomsayer.  I like playing one-offs if you can't tell, it gives more options, a lot of cards are worse when drawn in pairs, your opponents have a less clear idea of what you are holding at the end of a game and personally I just find it more fun.  The deck can throw opponents off because they don't really know what they are facing, then think they are slowing the onslaught rush of an agro mage only to learn they are setting themselves up for the lategame Alex, burn, Pyro.   

I love the matchup vs. Miracle still, solid matchup versus Handlock, many of the recent tweaks like adding the poly and adding back a doomsayer have been with druid in mind which is the tougher matchup and a class that seems to be gaining momentum in the meta(though it seems like fewer druids are running the cards that are the scariest to me like Healing Touch and Ancient of War).  It can be a tricky deck to play because you really have to know what to expect from your opponents and what they are capable of doing and some plays that you would make in one matchup you wouldn't make in another.   I'm no expert on this game yet, but I am getting a little better every time I play, currently one star away from Rank 2.


Anyway, heres my list right now

Obi's Kitchen Sink Control Mage:

1x Ice Lance
1x Mirror Entity
2x Mana Wyrm
2x Frostbolt
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
1x Doomsayer
2x Arcane Intellect
1x Frost Nova
1x Ice Barrier
2x Ice Block
1x Vaporize
1x Acolyte of Pain
1x Kirin Tor Mage
2x Fireball
1x Polymorph
1x Water Elemental
2x Azure Drake
2x Blizzard
2x Flamestrike
1x Alexstrasza
1x Pyroblast
1x Molten Giant

[popsofctown]

You really shouldn't pick your deck based on countering miracle rogue anyhow.  The weird thing about miracle rogue is that most of its losses come from the deck tripping on itself and not getting auctioneer.  There's little you can do to change the probability of that happening.  It's better to use techs on the matchups that you can actually change, and select a deck to play based on the matchups you can actually change.

Handlock is VERY good at countering miracle rogue. It's possible to win as the miracle, but you both need good draws and for the handlock to get bad draws. The problem is that the handlock starts throwing down enormous minions just before you're ready to fire your auctioneer combo, so you can't kill or sap them with ideal efficiency, and then just before you're getting to the stage of the game where you want to burst from Leeroy, handlock starts taunting its huge minions, and apart from sap you don't have good tools to get through them.

If handlock doesn't get the turn four mountain giant against miracle rogue it's pretty bleak.  Twidrake doesn't put enough of a clock on them at all. Handlock is a pretty good counter but it's an exception to a rule.

[popsofctown]

Handlock is the hardest counter to Miracle, but it's the softest hardest counter that there is.

[Obi Wan Bonogi]

Handlock is the hardest counter to Miracle, but it's the softest hardest counter that there is.

Control freeze mage with two ice blocks is a hard-hard counter to miracle.

[Kirian]

Obi's Kitchen Sink Control Mage: Elsa of Arendelle

1x Ice Lance
1x Mirror Entity
2x Mana Wyrm
2x Frostbolt
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
1x Doomsayer
2x Arcane Intellect
1x Frost Nova
1x Ice Barrier
2x Ice Block
1x Vaporize
1x Acolyte of Pain
1x Kirin Tor Mage
2x Fireball
1x Polymorph
1x Water Elemental
2x Azure Drake
2x Blizzard
2x Flamestrike
1x Alexstrasza
1x Pyroblast
1x Molten Giant

FTFY.  Though really we need a Frost Giant instead of Molten...

[Lekkit]

My first legendary was Alextrasza. So I started out my constructed journey with that. I liked it a lot. But then I started playing other stuff. Now I have some other good cards to play with. Reading this, I want to play freeze mage again.

[ashersky]

First time on Arena Mastery...odd Warrior deck I just made.  2 Legendaries, though.  Hmmm...

Will update with results.  I tried to follow Trump and Massan's lists, plus Arena Mastery ratings.

http://www.arenamastery.com/arena.php?shared=hs5396764902e59&arena=274760

And went a pathetic 1-3.  Any comments and tips welcome.  I felt like I was in good shape in all games, but couldn't finish it off.  I played Alex in every single game, Grommash in one game.