Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

My best deck right now is Jade Druid, so.

I look forward to seeing what the new year holds for me.

Wilfest Brawl is going to be later today. If you don't play Wild at all or very little, remember that Dr. Boom and Piloted shredder are nowhere near the powerhouses they used to be. They're pretty bad nowadays, actually.

well, shit

I almost forgot how fun that greedy Reno-lock was. Been enjoying playing that and oil rogue.

It seems like Rogue and Warlock are the really interesting decks in this Brawl. The other decks are just: "Standard but with Wild cards". It's kind of a shame too. They pick Tempo Mage for Mage and not something Wild-exclusive like Freeze Mage, Giant Mage or Reno Mage.

None of the three mages deck you named are being played right now in Wild. A true Burn Mage would have been more interesting, it runs at least more than 7 Wild cards. (Not like the lists of this tavern brawl are anything close of things being played on the ladder. )

Weirdest thing about this meta? The return of knife juggler. Curse you dude paladin.

Crafted Guldan in order to ladder with a deck that’s actually interesting to play. I may regret spending that much dust at some point in the future.

I am pleased to have won a game in fatigue by using Sense Demons on an empty deck and Dark Pacting one of the imps. :P

So, i have totally skipped over Kobols and Catacombs and haven't played since October. Is it safe to return now before the Year of the mammoth ends?

I was in the same position as you and had a lot of fun returning to the game after an extended absense.

My advice: play in Wild. You won't have to buy as many packs to stay competitive and have some fun decks to play.

Also, since you have so many cards to pick from, it becomes easier to make ultra greedy Reno/Kazakus decks with one-ofs.

Year of the Raven announcement. Ice Block, Coldlight Oracle and Molten Giant are getting Hall of Fame'd.

edited 27th Feb '18 11:31:49 AM by googlebot

Any word on the next expansion's theme? They've got the 'previews' there, but I'm not familiar enough with Warcraft to hazard a guess and I need to get to work so I only skimmed the page.

The first one looks to be druid or Emerald Dream themed.

So I guess any semblance of Mill is dead now? Also, aggro decks are getting another kick in the pants, being bereft of a cheap - if risky - draw. Ice Block is an obvious contender for the Hall of Fame, and I guess that means most of slower Mage decks are going to be on the defensive.

Molten Giant, it would be a mercy kill if they didn't reverse it back to 20 mana. Why Hall of Fame it then? They gave no explanation for this one.

Well, well...

• Ice Block: Yeah, this card is a major problem, enabling all sorts of aberrant Mage gameplay. No other card lets a player simply ignore their impending defeat, at least not without conditions. I had an idea that it should be made "legendary", only permitting one include per standard deck, but this works too. Quest Mage is dead now, though... if it ever had more than token life in the current meta.
• Coldlight Oracle: Bah, Blizzard doesn't like "burn the opponent's cards" play... but if that's true, why print Gnomeferatu or Naturalize? A Standard meta without mill gameplay will be a poorer one, but fine, whatever.
  • I can cope with it being denied as an aggro tool. 3 mana to draw 2 and have a 2/2 body is a bit broken in that context. Aggro should always have to choose between fielding minions and drawing cards, not have both at once.
• Molten Giant: Oh, I see. They're putting it back to its old mana cost so Wild players can experiment. No opinion here: it'll be a strong card in that format, just like it was pre-nerf. And Mages can still play it with Ice Block in Wild.

Some other stuff that wasn't mentioned above...

• Druids get a new unlockable hero: Lunara. This one'll be easy: it's a "win 10 games" quest. (The opportunity to unlock Maiev, in turn, will go away.)
• Daily quests get easier to complete. The requirements for most of them are being reduced (win 1 game with either of 2 classes instead of 2 games, for example) and the rewards bumped up to 50 gold for anything that was lower.

edited 27th Feb '18 12:22:28 PM by Fighteer

Happy to see all of these go. The Molten Giant un-nerf gives me hope for other cards to be moved to Wild so they can be played in un-nerfed forms.

Coldlight's HOF is incredibly welcome (Mill is an awful 'you don't get to have fun' archetype) and justified pretty well - the drawback is too easy to circumvent, especially by turning it into an advantage.

It'll be weird no longer playing around Ice Block, though.

Mill has always been a heavy punish against the most greedy of control decks. Losing it as a gameplay option makes the meta poorer, no matter how frustrating it may seem to play against.

Rogue will still have a fatigue archetype while Kingsbane (and Leeching Poison) is around, so that's not as big a problem.

edited 27th Feb '18 1:14:38 PM by Fighteer

I almost exclusively play and watch Wild matches now, so this news isn't really significant for me personally.

I do welcome the Molten Giant un-nerf, however. I am happy that they are setting the precedence of un-nerfing cards in Wild. I'd love to be able to play Old-school Patron Warrior again for example.

Mill is frustrating to play against if you have a slow, late-gamey deck, but against aggro it's terrible. I don't really feel that it was necessary to HoF Coldlight. It was pretty rare to encounter it on ladder and when I did, I usually won against it since their strategy requires them to draw the right cards at the exact right moment.

edited 27th Feb '18 1:27:51 PM by GutstheBerserker

Regarding those previews, the first one is indeed almost certainly Hyjal/Druid/Emerald Dream-based which would also tie in nicely with Lunara. The second one looks like it's Void-based to me though that could also be Arcane or maybe Deepholm. The last I have no solid ideas on but my two initial thoughts were Trolls and Pandaria.

That's basically it. For example, the current Kingsbane/Mill Rogue archetype is fantastic against Cubelock, in all of its incarnations, due to the ability to completely wreck its combos. For that matter, it's always been solid against control Warlocks in general because of that deck's love of drawing cards with its hero power.

Seeing that go will be saddening, and I'm not sure what will adequately replace it. Of course, Kingsbane Rogue doesn't absolutely depend on Coldlight Oracle, so I'm sure it'll survive. I've seen versions that concentrate on drawing its own cards rather than milling the opponent's, and are even heavier on the weapon buffs.

edited 27th Feb '18 1:31:16 PM by Fighteer

The Molten Giant un-nerf is entirely useless unless they nerf/rework (again) Naga Sea Witch. The mana cost doesn't matter if you can play Molten Giant on turn 5, anyway. Maybe even two, with Mountain or Clockwork Giants alongside it, for good measure. This makes me somewhat hopeful a change is in the works.

How does Molten Giant have anything inherently to do with Naga Sea Witch? That logic could apply to any 5+ mana, large creature.

You clearly haven't played wild in a while.

Naga Sea Witch sets the cost of cards in your hand to 5. The giants have effects that reduce their cost based on the situation...

Naga Sea Witch allows you to play most of your giants for (0) cost as early as turn 5. It's the most common form of Giants deck you will find in Wild these days.

Oh, I see. Got it. I'm not familiar with how that works, obviously.