Hearthstone Arena Drafting!

[GAAD]

FLAMECANNON over meh cards

3: Stampeding Kodo/Ethereal Arcanist/Secretkeeper

[Gandariel]

Kodo, easily.

Also, i would have picked Arcane golem as first pick. From turn 6-7 on the effect is barely noticeable, and it's 4 burst damage that can come in handy.

[GAAD]

STAMPEDING KODO over tech cards

4: Dread Corsair/Arcane Explosion/Drakonid Crusher

[CantigThimble]

Easy crusher, the other two are awful. Crusher makes dragon synergy slightly better and actually has solid stats for its cost.

[Jormengand]

I might take arc explo on a ton of spell power +, but since you have none right now... crusher.

[GAAD]

DRAKONIC CRUSHER for decent drop

5: Wild Pyromancer/Master Swordsmith/Violet Teacher

[Jormengand]

Pay Attention Class on the basis of not killing your own stuff + itself and not, uh, being a kind of card that mage doesn't really need.

[GAAD]

VIOLET TEACHER over garbage

6: Goldshire Footman/Wolfrider/Raging Worgen

[Jormengand]

Ooh... half-decent charge, half-decent taunt or half-decent body? I have no idea what to choose here. I'd personally take footman as a good turn 1 drop, but I don't know.

[CantigThimble]

I'd go raging worgen, its a decent body and has the potential to just win the game for a mage if they aren't able to contest it immediately. Wolfrider is often outshone by frostbolt and the host of other mage removals.

[Zevox]

Ooh... half-decent charge, half-decent taunt or half-decent body? I have no idea what to choose here. I'd personally take footman as a good turn 1 drop, but I don't know.

What? Goldshire Footman is terrible. It's one of the archetypal examples of a bad card: trades with almost nothing and doesn't have the durability to make the taunt matter. It's down there with Wisp as one of the worst commons in the game.

Raging Worgen here. Wolfrider is basically unimpressive removal for his cost, where the Worgen is a 3/3 for 3 with a potential upside, and better in Mage than in other classes. Mediocre, but certainly the best of the bunch.

I may have taken the Pyromancer on the last pick, incidentally. Mostly because 2-drops are so important, and Teacher isn't such an amazing 4 that I'd auto-pick it over a 3/2 for 2 without a good number of spells already in the deck. It is close, though.

[Draz74]

Definitely Raging Worgen.

On the previous pick, I probably would have agreed with Violet Teacher, but Zevox is right: Pyro is close.

[Mando Knight]

Agreed on Worgen. Wolfrider is only situationally good (and rarely so in Mage, which has a lot of common and efficient removal in the pool), and Goldshire is straight-up bad (best case scenario, he takes down two Imps or Silver Hand Recruits. More commonly, he's a speed bump).

[GAAD]

RAGING WORGEN over garbage

7: Core Hound/Hungry Dragon/Frost Nova

[Zevox]

Hungry Dragon, not even a question.

[Mando Knight]

Yeah, even if Hungry Dragon has been disappointing for a lot of people, it's still better than Core Hound or Frost Nova.

[The Glyphstone]

Especially for Mage, who has a better-than-even chance of being able to hero power away the free minion.

[GAAD]

HUNGRY DRAGON over garbage

8: Earthen Ring Farseer/Fireball/War Golem

[Fleeing Coward]

Fireball, next pick.

[GAAD]

FIREBALL for its firebally goodness

9: Cult Master/Water Elemental/Amani Beserker

Gah! So much VALUE! :(

[Zevox]

Water Elemental, easy. The other two are decent to good, but Water Elemental is a top pick.

[GAAD]

Water Elemental for Value

10: Junkbot/Murloc Warleader/Spellbender

REALLY?

[Fleeing Coward]

Spellbender wins that battle of the garbage epics.

[Zevox]

Spellbender wins that battle of the garbage epics.

Spellbender over a 3/3 for 3? Really? Can't say I agree. Spellbender is too likely to never trigger, or to end up catching only a spare part or some such. The Warleader is at least decent for the cost, as long as the opponent doesn't have any Murlocs in play, which they usually won't since most are bad.

[GAAD]

MURLOC WARLEADER over Krapparian

11: Spider Tank/Zombie Chow/Piloted Shredder

Oh, now you give me three OP cards to pick from. Suuure.

[Fleeing Coward]

Spellbender over a 3/3 for 3? Really? Can't say I agree. Spellbender is too likely to never trigger, or to end up catching only a spare part or some such. The Warleader is at least decent for the cost, as long as the opponent doesn't have any Murlocs in play, which they usually won't since most are bad.

Yes, I'd pick Spellbender over Warleader any day of the week. You'd be surprised how many players don't play around Spellbender or just plain don't have the cards available to profitably play around it in arena. You can't always just assume the worst case scenario every time.
(I will say that I've always liked a gamble though. While Warleader is the safe option, I'll always go for the card that has the potential to win you games when it works.)

Shredder edges out Spider Tank. Zombie Chow while normally a decent pick is a distant third in this lot of 3.

[Zevox]

Yes, I'd pick Spellbender over Warleader any day of the week. You'd be surprised how many players don't play around Spellbender or just plain don't have the cards available to profitably play around it in arena. You can't always just assume the worst case scenario every time.

Not playing around it I can see, though that's mostly because it's so rare, since it's both an epic and not very good. But I think the likelihood of it being effective is entirely too low to pass a card with average stats for its cost in favor it. If that third card had been a Wee Spellstopper or Ice Block or something I'd say take Spellbender, but not over Murloc Warleader.

Shredder edges out Spider Tank. Zombie Chow while normally a decent pick is a distant third in this lot of 3.

I might actually argue Chow to be second of the bunch - a good 1-drop that can't be killed by a hero power has a lot of use for establishing the lead early, more so I think than a 3 with above-average stats typically does. But yeah, Shredder is the top pick out of the three.

[Fleeing Coward]

Not playing around it I can see, though that's mostly because it's so rare, since it's both an epic and not very good. But I think the likelihood of it being effective is entirely too low to pass a card with average stats for its cost in favor it. If that third card had been a Wee Spellstopper or Ice Block or something I'd say take Spellbender, but not over Murloc Warleader.

The thing is, half the time the reason Spellbender doesn't trigger is because if your opponent is good and does work it out, they're just not going to be playing the cards that trigger it. It still does it's job of blanking some of the best spells in game even if you don't see it. Like I said, I'm a gambler so I'll always take the occasionally spectacular over the always mediocre.

I might actually argue Chow to be second of the bunch - a good 1-drop that can't be killed by a hero power has a lot of use for establishing the lead early, more so I think than a 3 with above-average stats typically does. But yeah, Shredder is the top pick out of the three.

Chow is great on curve but once it gets to the late game it becomes a liability since the deathrattle often makes it unplayable if you don't draw it within the first 2-3 turns. Tank on the other hand has above average stats for it's cost, acts as an enabler sometimes because it is a mech and even though it ain't amazing when drawn late, at least you can still play it.

[Gandariel]

Whoa,whoa.
Zombie Chow a distant third?
I believe it's *very* close between Chow and Shredder. I am frankly tempted to pick the chow, since we're low on 2s

Zombie chow on the first turns can be devastating, and the drawback usually doesn't matter. The deck we're building doesn't look aggressive, I would gladly take two or three Chows in most of my Arena decks.

To put it another way;
For every time I've said "aw, my opponent is at low health, it's turn 7+ and I just drew Chow" there is a "YES! Chow in opening hand, not getting rushed today! "

and frankly, with a board control style deck (which this is shaping up to be) the opponent's health doesn't really matter much.

Zombie chow has the power to single handedly make your opening hand good.ish.

A quote I heard from a tounament: "playing Hunter against Paladin is kinda risky. They can very well open Chow, Shielded Minibot, Aldoor/Muster and then you have really no chance of having any board control"

[Fleeing Coward]

Whoa,whoa.
Zombie Chow a distant third?
I believe it's *very* close between Chow and Shredder. I am frankly tempted to pick the chow, since we're low on 2s

Zombie chow on the first turns can be devastating, and the drawback usually doesn't matter. The deck we're building doesn't look aggressive, I would gladly take two or three Chows in most of my Arena decks.

To put it another way;
For every time I've said "aw, my opponent is at low health, it's turn 7+ and I just drew Chow" there is a "YES! Chow in opening hand, not getting rushed today! "

and frankly, with a board control style deck (which this is shaping up to be) the opponent's health doesn't really matter much.

Zombie chow has the power to single handedly make your opening hand good.ish.

A quote I heard from a tounament: "playing Hunter against Paladin is kinda risky. They can very well open Chow, Shielded Minibot, Aldoor/Muster and then you have really no chance of having any board control"

Distant probably isn't the right word, it's actually relatively close to Spider Tank although Spider Tank is the better card in my opinion. The margin between Shredder and those 2 though is much bigger (I'd only ever take Fireball and the first or second Flamestrike over Shredder unless it's very late in the draft and your curve has serious problems that you need to draft a low drop)

The problem is this isn't constructed, you can't consciously make this a full control deck because you want to, you go with what you're given. Your chances of drawing it on turn one even with a full mulligan isn't actually that high and any turn after that, it's really just a river croc with a downside most of the time.