Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

In the Warcraft continuity, Fel is used to denote things powered by demonic magic/energy.

And yet Jeeves is actually getting a lot of use in decks like a aggro pally, it has basically replaced Divine Favor.

edited 20th Dec '14 9:17:14 PM by Memers

Basically it started as a stand-in for the word "Hell" which has never really been a thing in Warcraft. IE: Felhounds. Now it just means "demonic".

Q: Besides the card back from reaching rank 20 for the month and the bragging rights, what unique rewards does playing ranked games get you? (Quest rewards and the regular gold per 3 wins aren't unique.)

I count that in the "bragging rights" category.

edited 20th Dec '14 9:39:32 PM by Elle

500 wins as a specific class will get you the golden version of that hero.

Nothing besides what you mentioned. But playing casual gets you literally nothing, and you have to play against all the smurfs. It's honestly a lot easier to play ranked.

You still get quest rewards and gold rewards from Casual though. I drop to Casual for quests I don't have a well-developed deck for...which at the moment means anything not Mage.

Sure, you can get the gold, but you don't get anything else. Remember that you can't drop below ranked 20, so there's no point in NOT playing in ranked. You'll play against people closer to your skill level (as the ranks do a fairly good job of keeping people at their correct level of play) and get those wins added to your class for the golden portrait.

I already hit 20 and am currently bouncing around 17. (I'm not playing enough that I expect to climb very high, especially because I'll be offline a bunch next week.)

...I didn't say I wasn't interested in the bragging rights. But what I need/want is gold/dust.

edited 20th Dec '14 11:16:04 PM by Elle

Pfft, showoff. Let me give it a shot and see if I understand your line of thinking.

The selling point of Jeeves is that if you can draw cards at the end of the turn it's played, you get a card draw advantage over your opponent. In other words, you need 2 or less cards left in your hand after you play Jeeves - and preferably none.^note If you have 2 cards left on the turn you play Jeeves, you've spent 4 mana to draw 1 card, which is a waste; if you have 1 card left, it's 4 mana for 2 cards, which still makes it inferior to Arcane Intellect as far as card draw is concerned, because a 1/4 body isn't much help in a dedicated rush deck.But the problem is that you need to empty (or nearly-empty) your hand and spend 4 mana to play Jeeves. My math is bad, but to achieve best results, this means that you either have to draw Jeeves into an empty hand on Turn 4 at the earliest, or it means that you try to dump Jeeves along with all the rest of your cheap cards anywhere between Turns 5-9, which is late for a rush deck. I can see how it'd fit Aggro Paladin, since that's essentially their style of play, but anything that's slower-paced is going to find it less useful.

Personally? I've had my best results with Jeeves in late-game Arena matches, but that's usually when the board's clear and both sides are desperately topdecking. So... really situational.

Even when both sides are topdecking, Jeeves always helps your opponent more than you. Because, well, you've always just spent 4 mana and a card on Jeeves, who is terrible.

edited 21st Dec '14 12:23:59 AM by Clarste

Bingo. Jeeves runs counter to anything that has a stable mana curve. If you go first, you have to play two cards on turn two or turn three just to get a single draw, and even then you really need to get two draws the first turn of Jeeves to make it work. Going second is worse, because you've got two extra cards (one the Coin, but still) to dump.

The worst part is that despite being a Mech, Jeeves is even worse in Mech decks. Not only do Mech decks have said curve (which you can only get around with Mechwarper and some luck), Jeeves has anti-synergy with anything that generates spare parts. And Tinkertown Technician is too good to not run in a Mech deck, so...

I really don't see how Jeeves is significantly worse than Soulfire or Doomguard, both of which are staples of zoolock. All three require burning your hand to make good use of them, but that doesn't make them useless.

And yeah, there is a certain anti-synergy between Jeeves and spare parts. OTOH, spare parts are extremely cheap to spam, and appear as deathrattles, so you just hold off on playing Jeeves until you've burned a glut of spare parts, or do it before anything with spare parts has died. It's not like your entire deck is going to be putting cards in your hand; most of the top tier mechs have different effects, with the 'spare parts' ones being used mostly as filler.

Jeeves strikes me as similar to antique healbot. For both, I've seen a lot of people talking about how terrible they are, while on ladder I'm seeing lots of people coming up with amazing plays using them. I can't help but be reminded of Naxx, where people guessed based on raw stats which cards were going to be terrible, and which overpowered, and got about half wrong for each category once the meta settled down again.

That said, I don't play arena very much, so i can't vouch for anything in that environment.

The thing is, I didn't guess on raw stats, I've actually tested Jeeves in actual play (in a couple of different deck types). It honestly is one of those cards where if everything lines up it dominates the game (and thus demands that you build a deck specifically around it).

I would think that we've learned by now that decks built around a single card don't work.

edited 21st Dec '14 7:59:15 AM by TotemicHero

For Fel Reaver I think it doesn't fit in aggro decks. The downside isn't really that big (like Tracking, which is also a very good card regardless of its downside). The problem is that it's easy to remove, because there's not a lot of big minions that are worthy of removal. Especially Big Game Hunter and Shadow Word: Death tend to lack targets in aggro decks, making Fel Reaver an instant target for those cards.

I think Fel Reavers only real chance to shine is in a theoretical control deck that gets to fatigue often. Fel Reaver discards cards, so it's downside is completely nullified when you reach fatigue; at that point it's just a 5 mana 8/8.^note You do not take fatigue damage when cards get discarded from your deck. Which is a huge deal, because lots of control decks focus on having more threats than your opponent can deal with.

I say theoretical because I cannot think of a single control deck that reaches fatigue often enough for the downside to be nullified and that can make use of the extra vanilla 8/8. I guess Handlock reaches fatigue sometimes (although it's not a really control deck), but it doesn't really need an extra giant. It does have a niche to fill in that deck, though, because often Mountain Giant becomes hard to play when you're low on cards in your hand, and when you're in fatigue your Mountain Giant won't get easier to play.

I feel like that this reduces Fel Reaver to a tournament card. I think it's time to shine is in a slow deck versus a slow deck, but there's too much aggro decks on the ladder to count on that happening. In a tournament there's much more room for including specific tech cards (which is why Harrison Jones is more popular in tournaments than on the ladder, as an example).

edited 21st Dec '14 8:23:17 AM by iTeruri

I'm still trying to get my eye in for what Mechs are actually good in a Mech deck and what aren't. Mechwarper, obviously, as well as (for my Shaman mech deck at least) the Zap-o-Matic, as well as Harvest Golem because that's solid just about anywhere regardless of its Mechness. Other than that, though, I don't really know. Annoy-o-tron? Micro Machine? Cogmaster? I'd like to use Mimitron's Head because getting three of them from one bundle of packs almost seems like a divine sign to use them, as well. And what about the other good neutral cards, how many of them do I use? Stuff like Lightning Storm and Hex is a given, but what about things like Fire Elemental, Earth Shock, or the weapons?

I see you've forgotten about Miracle Rogue. Depending on the card, decks built around one card can be amazing.

Annoy-o-tron and Micro Machine are both pretty good. Mechanical Yeti is also solid. Clockwork Gnome is a good card in more aggressive decks, but in a slower deck you'd probably want Zombie Chow instead. Tinkertown Technician is also amazing if you have mech synergy. Fire Elemental and Earth Shock are both fantastic; as for the weapons, Shaman decks usually run one type at most so I'd say the Powermace would be a good choice.

edited 21st Dec '14 8:50:07 AM by Swampertrox

With only 30 cards in a deck, building a deck around 2 copies of 1 card is very viable outside of maybe tournament style play.

Kark: I'm not sure if you can compare Jeeves to Soulfire / Doomguard. Soulfire and Doomguard sacrifice cards in your hand in order to have an immediate effect on the board, allowing you to strengthen your position. Jeeves, on the other hand, compromises your board position (due to its poor stats) in order to strengthen your hand (delayed effect), and the way its card draw works means that your hand must've already been poor or nonexistent to begin with. Furthermore, Warlock can mitigate the discard mechanic to some extent with Life Tap.

I'm not sure about Micro Machine. It tends to die quickly. Annoy-o-tron is fantastic, and the Shielded Minibot is one of the best minions atm.

So, does this look good, then? (I'd trade out the Shredders for Yetis, but I don't have any Mechanical Yetis and I'm saving my dust for a Legendary.)

Gazlowe would be good... if I had him.

And I like the Shredders. I feel like they have a proclivity towards spitting out Annoy-o-trons, which is helpful.

edited 21st Dec '14 9:39:44 AM by Thnikkafan

With so many 1 mana spells in there I would say use Gazlowe instead of the head and Yetis instead of the shreders.

Ah right, I forgot about the Shredders. Those might be even better than Yetis.

@Thnikkafan: Eh, that deck does seem to lack card draw (spare parts don't count), but their aren't really any good solutions I have for that, since it's a shaman problem. Mana Tide Totem, even with two, is a bit too slow for a midrange deck like that one, and Mech decks don't seem to offer enough warm bodies to throw away to make Cult Master work. You'd be better off with a class that can back the mechs up with card draw.

If you do want to make a change instead of switching classes, I suggest dropping the Lightning Bolts (they aren't all that good since they can't really be played turn 1) and get a couple of more bodies. Maybe some Spider Tanks - they aren't fancy, but a 3 mana 3/4 is as solid as you get.

For the record, he doesn't "not" post games, (Except for tournament games). If he's played it on his stream, it does get posted to Youtube eventually.

EDIT: also feedback on this deck

Been doing decent so far (Got up to Rank 11), but it could use improvements. Not sure about cultmaster vs Acolyte for card draw.

edited 21st Dec '14 12:21:50 PM by Ghilz