Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

The deck looks fine, apart from the Knife Juggler and the Cult Master it's basically the deck Trump played a few days ago. Knife Juggler is an odd choice for a control deck like this, what is it supposed to do? Paladins don't lack removal, between their weapons, Equality and Consecration.

I prefer Acolyte of Pain in decks like this, Cult Master require you to have at least one minion on the board, while Acolyte of Pain always draws at least one card. Unless it gets silenced, of course, but baiting silences is never a bad thing as a paladin.

So I would replace the Cult Master with a second Acolyte of Pain and the two Knife Jugglers with some more late game minions, I'm a huge fan of Sylvanas and Bolvar works well in a deck like this, but you might not have them. I think cards like Piloted Sky Golem or Loatheb also fit this deck well.

How has the one equality been working for you? I often find that I prefer two, just because it hates on midrange and aggro decks.

Does Imp-losion plus spell damage result in more imps?

Yep, it does scale with spell damage. And given that you're losing value at 2 imps, spell damage does come recommended.

edited 21st Dec '14 1:49:20 PM by TotemicHero

to elaborate on a thing from a couple pages back on fel energy (because I'm a lore nerd) there are generally a few classes of magic in the warcraft cosmology.

Buut lets focus specifically on Fel.

Fel magic is a subcategory of the Arcane, magic used by wizards. All arcane magic tends to be highly addictive, practically euphoric to cast (hence the tendency for mages needing lots of willpower to resist corruption)

If Arcane is Cocaine though, fel Energy is the purest crack rock you have ever seen. It is the strongest, most potent, and most insanely corrupt form of magic, derived from demonic blood and the most corrupt arcane magic. Casting it is euphoria on a grand scale, meaning warlocks need practically iron will to resist corruption.

The benefits of fel energy, of course are that the stuff is just as powerful as it is euphoric, giving the user a form of magic that is at best, difficult to resist, and at worst, will burn your body asunder while also warping your mind and soul. It also can raise mountains, create rituals of huge levels of power (like the Dark Portal or the creation of necromantic deathknights), and generally wreaks havoc.

edited 21st Dec '14 2:32:04 PM by midgetsnowman

The deck looks fine, apart from the Knife Juggler and the Cult Master it's basically the deck Trump played a few days ago. Knife Juggler is an odd choice for a control deck like this, what is it supposed to do? Paladins don't lack removal, between their weapons, Equality and Consecration.

I prefer Acolyte of Pain in decks like this, Cult Master require you to have at least one minion on the board, while Acolyte of Pain always draws at least one card. Unless it gets silenced, of course, but baiting silences is never a bad thing as a paladin.

I needed more 2 drops, and the Knife Juggler is fine early game. Later in the game I find it combos well with Muster for battle for some great values out of both powers, as opposed to other 2 mana options that might have less late game use. Ditto for the cult master, I like the muster/silver hand recruit synergy. I agree with your idea on the acolyte, that it most often garantees at least one card drawn,,,

Of those four cards, I only have loatheb.

Not gonna lie and say it's never happened for me to want equality and not get it, but that's also true of cards I have 2 copies of. IMHO 1 is enough. I rarely need to AOE that much. The peacekeepers, truesilvers, Muster For Battle and Quartermasters help garantee I don't fall behind too much. And many aggro decks can be equally devastated by Consecration alone or Consecration and Wild Pyro.

edited 21st Dec '14 4:44:46 PM by Ghilz

Playing against a warlock as paladin. Pitched battle; he almost got me but I just stablized with 3 hp left. Got a taunt out; a shredder behind it and got to use lay on hands to get out of soulfire range. Hes at 2 health, top decking, both of his minions can't kill my taunt and deal me lethal. Even with soulfire or power overwhelming. Its locked. Next turn I win. I earned this one... Put Tirion Fordring down to secure the win. Nothing can take this one from me.

... And hearthstone crashes.

edited 23rd Dec '14 2:55:47 AM by Ghilz

I'm trying out a few different Control Hunter builds. I just had an explosive play (literally) where my opponent Mind Controled my Sneed's Old Shredder. I had Sylvanas in hand, so the plan was to steal it back. However, I didn't have Feign Death in hand to activate her effect. Luckily I had both Wild Pyromancer and Hunter's Mark in hand, which is somewhat like using your own Shadow Word Death on Sylvanas in Priest. The Wild Pyromancer also destroys my Boom Bots, dealing damage to the enemy Priest in a cool display of fireworks.

In other news, some person on reddit gathered statistics on usage of legendary's in a recent tournament, it turns out 78% of the decks featured Dr. Boom. He analysed a single tournament, but it does show you how ridiculously good Dr. Boom is (if it being in nearly every type of deck wasn't enough of an indication). A future nerf seems likely, in the past they also nerfed Sylvanas for being in almost every deck.

I have seen exactly zero uses of Dr. Boom. What's he do again?

He is a 7/7 and spawns 2 1/1 boombots which have a deathrattle of doing 1-4 damage to a random enemy.

Trump and Kripp have both called it the best legendary in Gv G.

It has insane value — for one card, you get three bodies on the board and two of them are guaranteed to do damage.

One of these days, I'd like to see Dr Boom and Kel'Thuzad played back-to-back.

It amuses me that Boom's design straight up abandons the polite fiction of rarer cards not being more potent when compared cost to cost with basic cards. It's not the only one, but it's the most egregious example.

As far as Kelthuzad combos go, though, it's more troublesome to see KT in defensive combos where it's harder to break the loop of immortality, rather than offensive ones that are theoretically amazing, but in practice easily broken. KT + one or two sludge belchers may not be a leet damage combo a la miracle rogue, but it's still one of the most horrifying things you can possibly see in game. Which is why everyone should be running silences these days.

Problem is that KT + S Ludge is not playable in one turn except for druids who also happen to have innervate and the coin at turn 10, or 2 innervates. Which is so rare as be more an oddity than something that might happen.

And if you play them on different turns, you're unlikely to keep KT around or the sludge belcher so you can get max benefit coz at 10 mana, your opponents likely to have solutions for both. There's a reason KT's not played that much - He cost so damn much he requires a board already be there for him to do anything, making him one of those "Win more" card. It's the main difference with the miracle rogue combo you mentioed: Miracle Rogue combos are more likely to happen than not. Getting KT safe behind 1 or 2 Sludge Belcher? Less likely.

edited 23rd Dec '14 9:22:27 AM by Ghilz

You're right on that count, and I'm trying to squeeze those into my constructed decks. I like Sunwalkers as well.

I get better results from Kel when playing it on the curve. I don't find that it's as simple as calling it a "win more" condition, because having Kel up when trading turns an even exchange into a board control advantage. You do need at least some board presence though.

edited 23rd Dec '14 9:52:33 AM by Pyrite

You have a point about the not being able to combo in one turn thing, but you can't combo him with Boom or other high-end aggressive legendaries in one turn either, and that was the example we were looking at for comparison.

I think calling it a 'win more' card is a bit overly narrow. You don't have to be in an advantageous board position to benefit from KT, you just have to have the ability to maintain some kind of tradable board presence from the previous turn. He won't turn around a LOSING situation where you have nothing else on board, but he does turn an otherwise even, close fight into a free win, since you can just trade your army into theirs for nothing. Maybe instead of being a 'win more' card it should be called a 'lose less' card.

(Oh, look at that, Pyrite and me had the same ideas while I was typing that.)

edited 23rd Dec '14 9:37:33 AM by Karkadinn

Looking at the higher cost cards from GVG, I think they are using a new formula here. Based on looking at a couple of cards, my rough guess of what this new formula is as follows.

Base value: 2 stat points
Each additional point of mana up to 5: +2 stat points
Each additional point of mana above 5: +3 stat points

This new formula applies to all cards, class or neutral. Prior to this, neutral cards that cost 3 or more mana had one fewer stat points, and cards above 5 mana did not get extra stat points per mana. Also, things like Beast cost one stat point, and now they don't cost any.

Of course, now we get to go back to the classic cards and apply this formula to them, which tells us those cards mostly stink.

edited 23rd Dec '14 9:51:51 AM by TotemicHero

So, Power Creep?

Regarding Kel'Thuzad: He's turned around a few games for me by letting me pull off a free steal with Sylvanas or simply preserving minions after I use them to clear the board. More to the point, he's a card that often causes the opponent to Rage Quit if they can't immediately remove it. And in the worst case, he's a big body that fortuitously can't be BGH'ed.

edited 23rd Dec '14 10:05:49 AM by Fighteer

Yep, it's Power Creep, although I doubt we can call it that once they release two or three more expansion sets. (I doubt they will tinker with the formula every time.)

Speaking of KT. Just had a Shaman play him early on turn 5 with Ancestor's Call. Sadly KT immediately got Aldor Peacekeeper'd and then only served to resurrect the 1/1 fire totem so my Acolyte of pain could draw mad cards. Then he played another Ancestor's call on turn 6 and I got Tirion Fordring.

In Trump's friendly match versus Amaz the other day, Trump was playing Priest. He killed Amaz's Sneed's, which dropped Al'Akir. He then used the Shrinkmeister/Cabal Shadow Priest combo to steal it. It was hilarious.

edited 23rd Dec '14 1:24:35 PM by Fighteer

I saw that. The three Sneeds he got (His own, Toughtstolen Mirror Entity'd and Amaz')

edited 23rd Dec '14 1:25:02 PM by CobraPrime

So, Sneed's is highest on the list of Legendaries I Should Get?

Sneed's and Dr. Boom seem to be the best of the best in GvG in the current meta.