Hearthstone 9: I dream and the forums tremble.

[Tectonic Robot]

I'm enjoying Dr. Boom quite a lot, myself.

[Gray Mage]

I think Ysera is better, but might be too slow in arena.

[Grytorm]

Remember everyone if you use Time Rewinder on a charge treant if you get a second combo off it is eighteen points of damage if we drop the treant before savage roar. At least it didn't cost me the game.

[r2d2go]

I think Ysera is better, but might be too slow in arena.

Ysera's great in arena. It's a 4/12 that people want to deal with immediately, and produces cards that help you recover. As long as you're not in that unlikely zone where your opponents want to rush you down, but can't kill you, but can bring you to 5 or less health, and Dr Boom would be enough to clear... Ysera's pretty dang good because a 4/12 body is awesome and a 5 damage hellfire can basically recover the board for you alone, if you get it. Obviously its not a taunt, but neither is Dr Boom. If your opponent could run you over, they were going to run you over anyway. A 4/12 body and really good cards are going to be about as good as a 7/7 body and a one-time bonus of highly random 1/1s.

That said, Dr Boom is great in Arena I just think Ysera's better in most situations.

[ex cathedra]

Most of those are only even possible if you draw Mechwarper, which you won't always do (Tinkertown Technician as a 3 mana 4/4 only requires any mech, but that also depends on it surviving, unless you're playing it on turn 5+ in combination with said Mech). And even when you do, I honestly can't say that I've seen that alone win games as yet, either for myself or for others. Such plays just have not been as powerful as they sound on paper in my experience - it's still plenty possible to keep them under control, unless you've drawn a bad hand.

you can mulligan aggressively for mechwarper, and it wins enough games for the kibler list to hit top 24 legend and maintain top 100 despite the popularity of decks like control warrior and handlock.

Annoy-o-Tron is more like Shieldbearer from the days it was used in Zoo: except that deck doesn't run attack buffs for it, and it's vulnerable to hero powers taking off the divine shield, and more vulnerable to AoE, and costs an extra mana. So yeah, I'm not impressed.

• it naturally has more attack than shieldbearer
• it enables blastmage, TT, and cogmaster
• it interacts better with spare parts than shieldbearer
• there's nothing "vulnerable" about its interaction with hero powers, a player having to dedicate that additional mana and attack(s) is a significant tempo swing in favor of the mech player
• it's only more vulnerable to 1-or-less damage AoE. it often takes the same amount of damage from holy nova/blizzard and less damage from auchenai circle/flamestrike.

[TechnoWarforged]

Next Thread name for Hearthstone 10?

We should do something GvG ish...

I recommend "Hearthstone 10: Hello.... Hello...."

[Frog Dragon]

Hearthstone 10: I AM RNG INCARNATE!

[Divayth Fyr]

Hearthstone 10: Mind controlling the RNG?

[The Glyphstone]

Hearthstone 10: I AM THE CARDACLYSM!

[Nerocite]

Hearthstone 10: Thread Reaper 4000

[Epinephrine_Syn]

Ysera's great in arena. It's a 4/12 that people want to deal with immediately, and produces cards that help you recover. As long as you're not in that unlikely zone where your opponents want to rush you down, but can't kill you, but can bring you to 5 or less health, and Dr Boom would be enough to clear... Ysera's pretty dang good because a 4/12 body is awesome and a 5 damage hellfire can basically recover the board for you alone, if you get it. Obviously its not a taunt, but neither is Dr Boom. If your opponent could run you over, they were going to run you over anyway. A 4/12 body and really good cards are going to be about as good as a 7/7 body and a one-time bonus of highly random 1/1s.

That said, Dr Boom is great in Arena I just think Ysera's better in most situations.

Shrinkmeister + Cabal Shadowpriest makes anybody playing Ysera sad. That alone makes Ysera go way down in my mind simply cause it's often worse than useless vs Priest. Though I don't see too many Priests so far. Speaking of, made a Priest deck and been play testing it, and would like some general advice on the deck itself. At first I thought Vol'Jin would have been a star, but turns out he's only moderately useful (though when he's awesome, he's awesome).

Here Come The Voodoo

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Shrinkmeister + Cabal Shadowpriest is significantly less likely to pop up in Arena, however.

[Anxe]

Whipped up a banner myself. Let me know if anyone else has got something better!

[Grytorm]

I someday want to play a Mindblast/Velen priest deck for sick sick burst. The rest of it fairly standard. But that is solid burst. Alexstraza for the finisher nine drop. Pretend I am a Warrior with Gromash.

Edit: Also I hope I am not annoying, I worry about that a lot but most of my comments here are kind of nonsequitor so I hope it doesn't offend.

Edit: Oh god Archmage Antonidas with spare parts is hilarious. Don't have the card but I played against a mage and thoughtstole him and it was an absolute blast. He played two or three Mechanical Yetis, I stole a Toshley with Mind Control, and Thoughstole a Tinkertown Technician. Used two Finicky Cloakfields on the fellow and just drew around 5 Fireballs.

[Zevox]

you can mulligan aggressively for mechwarper, and it wins enough games for the kibler list to hit top 24 legend and maintain top 100 despite the popularity of decks like control warrior and handlock.

The Kibler list isn't the one I was cricitizing. That one I have more respect for - hence my lack of comment after you supplied the working link to it. Though I still think it's a mistake for it to run Annoy-o-Tron, but only some versions did, and he was still experimenting with it.

Though actually, in the specific matchup of Control Warrior, there may be some merit to Annoy-o-Tron, since he makes using weapons for removal difficult, and Control Warrior is often very reliant on those in the early game. But on the flip side he's fuel for Acolyte of Pain and Armorsmith too, so eh.

it naturally has more attack than shieldbearer

But not enough attack to kill anything important or put any pressure on an opponent.

it interacts better with spare parts than shieldbearer

Other than Reversing Switch, I'm not seeing how that's the case.

there's nothing "vulnerable" about its interaction with hero powers, a player having to dedicate that additional mana and attack(s) is a significant tempo swing in favor of the mech player

It means that it's easier for an opponent's minions to kill it than Shieldbearer. Shieldbearer didn't die to a 2/3 for 2 (or even 2/1 for 1 in rare cases) plus a hero power - Annoy-o-Tron does.

it's only more vulnerable to 1-or-less damage AoE. it often takes the same amount of damage from holy nova/blizzard and less damage from auchenai circle/flamestrike.

Um, just the reverse. Once the divine shield is gone, any AoE spell that actually sees use will kill it, unlike Shieldbearer, which requires something as strong as Flamestrike.

[Legoshrimp]

Um, just the reverse. Once the divine shield is gone, any AoE spell that actually sees use will kill it, unlike Shieldbearer, which requires something as strong as Flamestrike.

I guess, but if we ignore that shieldbearer has taunt it is almost completely useless(well it sort of is anyways), so ignoring important card effects probably isn't a good precedent.

[Zevox]

I guess, but if we ignore that shieldbearer has taunt it is almost completely useless(well it sort of is anyways), so ignoring important card effects probably isn't a good precedent.

The trouble is that divine shield is often easy to remove. Three different hero powers do it on command, two more can do it if not killed by something else, still two more can do it in conjunction with another card. And on something as weak as Annoy-o-Tron it's easy to remove with a minion as well. Certain decks might have difficulty with it, such as the Control Warrior instance I mentioned earlier, but even those typically have some good ways to handle it (Acolyte, Armorsmith, and Slam in Control Warrior's case).

[Lighturtle]

Annoy O Tron interacts better with whirling blades and the attack swap though. He can also stop two attacks from Ragnaros, molten giant, etc. He likes blessing of might, cold blood, etc much better. Plus hey, mech.

I did a sick combo recently! Suicide voidcaller, get doomguard, po po abusive faceless BAM BAM.

[Rosstin]

Haha, very nice Anxe. That'll do.

[Xiander]

The trouble is that divine shield is often easy to remove. Three different hero powers do it on command, two more can do it if not killed by something else, still two more can do it in conjunction with another card. And on something as weak as Annoy-o-Tron it's easy to remove with a minion as well. Certain decks might have difficulty with it, such as the Control Warrior instance I mentioned earlier, but even those typically have some good ways to handle it (Acolyte, Armorsmith, and Slam in Control Warrior's case).

Sorry, but I think that downtalking the devine shield because hero powers remove it is a mistake. In the early game, which is where anoy-o-tron has most value, having to spend two mana to remove a devine shield is a big deal. Those two mana could give you any high value two drop.

I will not say that Annoy-o-tron is a great card, but it fills the role of temporeducer pretty briliantly. It has some of the same strenth's that sludgebelcher has. If you want to get rid of this, you have to hit it twice, and meanwhil, you can do nothing about the actual threats on my side of the board.
Of course annoy-o-tron is worse against hard removal than Belcher, but no one in their right mind would spend hard removal on a two drop.
And I realise that the annoing bot is way easier to remove than the Belcher, but again, it's a two drop, its not supposed to be that intimidating.

Personally, I don't feel much like running Annoy-o-tron, but i can recognise that for a tempo block play, you could do a lot worse.

[ShinyRocks]

I made a Rogue Mech deck and am having quite a lot of fun with it, but it doesn't feel *quite* right. I feel like Mechs are missing something like Murloc Warleader, to give an overall buff to them. Iron Sensei is crazy good.

And I love Spare Parts. Finally got to do what I'd been hoping for - a Mircomachine had got to 5/2. Attacked with it, then switched its stats to increase its survival. It was eventually a 5/5 by the time my opponent used SW: Death on it, so who knows how far it could have gone.

[Zevox]

Sorry, but I think that downtalking the devine shield because hero powers remove it is a mistake. In the early game, which is where anoy-o-tron has most value, having to spend two mana to remove a devine shield is a big deal. Those two mana could give you any high value two drop.

I will not say that Annoy-o-tron is a great card, but it fills the role of temporeducer pretty briliantly. It has some of the same strenth's that sludgebelcher has. If you want to get rid of this, you have to hit it twice, and meanwhil, you can do nothing about the actual threats on my side of the board.
Of course annoy-o-tron is worse against hard removal than Belcher, but no one in their right mind would spend hard removal on a two drop.
And I realise that the annoing bot is way easier to remove than the Belcher, but again, it's a two drop, its not supposed to be that intimidating.

Personally, I don't feel much like running Annoy-o-tron, but i can recognise that for a tempo block play, you could do a lot worse.

It's not just because of hero powers, but also because on a minion as weak as Annoy-o-Tron, it's not even an issue to remove it with a minion either. Divine Shield is great for forcing someone to lose something valuable against a minion with high attack, particularly if they're not a Mage, Rogue, or Druid - and with Rogue and Druid high attack makes them less willing to use a hero power to remove it, since it means more damage to their face. On Annoy-o-Tron, it's a minor stalling tool and nothing more. And I'm simply not convinced that's worth running such a weak minion - just as it turned out that running Shieldbearer in Zoo didn't last.

And I love Spare Parts. Finally got to do what I'd been hoping for - a Mircomachine had got to 5/2. Attacked with it, then switched its stats to increase its survival. It was eventually a 5/5 by the time my opponent used SW: Death on it, so who knows how far it could have gone.

I got a Micro Machine out on turn 1 against a Control Warrior yesterday, and he turned out not to have a good answer to it, so it grew to an 8/2 before he finally killed it - with Big Game Hunter. Needless to say, I won that one.

In general though, I haven't been impressed with Micro Machine. It rarely gets beyond a 3/2 before you have to trade it, or the opponent spends some cheap removal on it to keep it from getting out of hand, and if you get it later in the game it can be hard to find a time to drop it because a 2/2 is so vulnerable to dying to other minions without trading (or AoE). I've reduced it to a one-of in my Mecha-Priest at this point.

[Gandariel]

Micro machine is on the same boat of Raging worgen, in my opinion.

Obviously not a bad card, has an upside that is potentially game swinging, and forces a reaction out of your opponent, but ultimately, it's just not quite good and consistent enough to work.

I used to love Worgen, and carried 2 copies of it in my Mage deck back when I started playing. But as I gained better cards, it became more and more clear that they just weren't good enough.

[Infernally Clay]

Well, my love for Antonidas is no secret (geddit?) but I think the Spare Parts mechanic really allows him to shine. It's really easy to get one mana spells now in advance of when you play him and, of course, getting a Fireball from a Spare Part is amazing. Like, almost gamebreakingly amazing.

I can see why Mech Mage is so popular lately.

[Grytorm]

What is the difference between midrange and control? I have been thinking about that because of watching Trumps video on a Control Paladin deck and it seems more midrange I guess?

[Zevox]

What is the difference between midrange and control? I have been thinking about that because of watching Trumps video on a Control Paladin deck and it seems more midrange I guess?

Midrange is probably the hardest deck style to pull off or explain. But the basic idea is that it's a flexible in-between of aggro and control: against aggro decks it looks to play like a control deck and beat them in the late-game; against control decks it looks to play like an aggro deck and win before they overpower it in the late-game; and against other mid-range decks they have to adapt to the specific opponent and judge which strategy is more likely to work against what they're dealing with. They're not as good at either strategy as a more dedicated deck, but not committed to just one either. And striking that proper balance is what makes them harder to construct and to play.

[Zevox]

Got a pretty nice pack today - my first Quartermaster, plus an Imp-losion for the rare. Though that may end up disenchanted eventually, as I don't get the impression that Demonlock is working out despite the new cards for it. Certainly the only one I've seen fared poorly. Also filling out the few remaining commons I need, with my first Goblin Auto-Barber and Clockwork Gnome. If I can get one more each of those and Seal of Light, I'll be pretty much set on GvG commons that I care about.

[Grytorm]

I really want to figure out what my list will be someday when I get the Legendaries for a Prophet Velen Burst Priest.

I have a 37 card list of what I want to run but don't know quite how to trim it. Any advice?

Spoiler: List

Show

2x Circle
1x Silence
2x Holy Smite
2x Power Word Shield
2x Northshire Cleric
1x Mindblast
2x Shrinkmeister
2x Wild Pyromancer
1x Shadow Word Death
2x Thoughtsteal
2x Dark Cultist
2x Injured Blademaster
2x Shadow Madness
2x Auchenai Soul Priest
1x Holy Nova
1x Vol'Jin
2x Sludge Belcher
2x Cabal Shadow Priest
1x Holy Fire
1x Sylvanas Windrunner
1x Prophet Velen
1x Ysera
1x Mind Control

[ShinyRocks]

I really want to figure out what my list will be someday when I get the Legendaries for a Prophet Velen Burst Priest.

I have a 37 card list of what I want to run but don't know quite how to trim it. Any advice?

Spoiler: List

Show

2x Circle
1x Silence
2x Holy Smite
2x Power Word Shield
2x Northshire Cleric
1x Mindblast
2x Shrinkmeister
2x Wild Pyromancer
1x Shadow Word Death
2x Thoughtsteal
2x Dark Cultist
2x Injured Blademaster
2x Shadow Madness
2x Auchenai Soul Priest
1x Holy Nova
1x Vol'Jin
2x Sludge Belcher
2x Cabal Shadow Priest
1x Holy Fire
1x Sylvanas Windrunner
1x Prophet Velen
1x Ysera
1x Mind Control

When you've got such a strong vision of a deck, I don't know why you'd put Thoughtsteal in there. Other people's cards aren't going to fit in with your plan or synergise properly. Lose them. Ditto the Mind Control - you know what your win condition is, so wasting a whole turn stealing something might work against you.

If you're going for Velen-burst, you surely want 2 Mind Blasts - that's 20 damage. From the hand, even, if you manage to save the Coin that long (massively unlikely though that is).

You've got no Shadow Word Pain? Is that because you're planning on Shrinkmeister and steal with Cabal, rather than Shrinkmeister and kill?

You might want to think about Light of the Naaru too, if you're thinking of combining Velen and Auchenai - that essentially becomes 1 mana 'deal 6 damage, summon a Lightwarden'.

I don't really see what purpose Sylvanas or Ysera serve either. I mean, they're really strong cards, but they don't seem to contribute directly to what you're aiming for.

[Wayac]

Hearthstone 10: 50% chance to post in the wrong thread.

Been trying to put together a priest deck that synergizes well with Velen's Chosen and Inner Fire. Any good suggestions for minions?