Hearthstone 20: What is your Quest?

[Seerow]

DISCLAIMER: Datamined stuff, so nothing official.

Spoiler: Future Event?

Show

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2983-p...-nerfed-frozen
http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2985-f...en-throne-card

The snoops at Hearthpwn have apparently discovered an Arena-based holiday bonus event lasting for three weeks. Presumably this is going to be before the new expansion launches. Fits nicely if it comes after this week's Fire Festival. But even if it's after, doesn't matter.

I don't mind the concept and gameplay of Arena, it's just that at this point in time I'd rather save the gold for packs of the new expansion. Free Arena runs (one free run per week, they say), with a bonus Knights pack on top of the standard Arena rewards? Sign me up.

I'm not going to turn away free stuff, lol.

Welp there goes my Rogue meta deck. I might tinker around with it, but I was being run over by aggro before the nerf. Need to try some things out.

Hell yeah turn 4 Jade Spirit turn 5 Servant of Kalimos. Err...maybe not.

Buff for the Jade elemental shaman, but I'm pretty sure that didn't even make it to tier 3, and everyone is playing token shaman anyway


Edit: New app update being in means preorder on app is now available. Went and bought my 50 packs with amazon coins. Now up to 104 packs waiting for the expansion to open (also grabbed a set of the Ungoro packs while they were on sale). By the time the expansion rolls around I should have around 3000g, maybe a bit more if those rumors of 3 free arena runs are true. Altogether should make for a fun day of pack openings.

Oh also went ahead and DEd my Caverns Below, because 1600 dust is tasty. Considering crafting a Yogg for funsies, but I figure I'll wait until after pack openings to see if I am missing anything I desperately want first.

[PsyBomb]

Jade Spirit gaining the Elemental tag is actually really important. It fits the Elemental Shaman curve remarkably well, fighting with Fire Plume Phoenix for the slot (and most versions of the deck are already running Claws, Lightning, and Aya). I'll be toying with it.

[Spore]

CONTROOOOOOL META! Yay!

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, I'm trying a shaman with jade spirits now in place of the phoenixes. Also changed out a couple other cards to fit Jade Chieftain, since I might as well at this point.

I also caved, bought some greater crater packs alongside the promo for the new set. I've got 112 packs to open now, and over 3k gold to drop on new ones when the set releases.

[PsyBomb]

Yeah, I'm trying a shaman with jade spirits now in place of the phoenixes. Also changed out a couple other cards to fit Jade Chieftain, since I might as well at this point.

I also caved, bought some greater crater packs alongside the promo for the new set. I've got 112 packs to open now, and over 3k gold to drop on new ones when the set releases.

Top end of Ele Shaman is already too crowded to fit the Chieftains in, I think. Blazecallers, Kalimos, possible Al'Akir, plus probable pulls from Servant and Stonehill.

[Destro_Yersul]

Top end of Ele Shaman is already too crowded to fit the Chieftains in, I think. Blazecallers, Kalimos, possible Al'Akir, plus probable pulls from Servant and Stonehill.

I'm not running Stonehill or Al'Akir in mine. My 7+ slot is just the Blazecallers, the Chieftains and Kalimos, and the 6s are just two Fire Elementals and Aya.

[Spore]

Top end of Ele Shaman is already too crowded to fit the Chieftains in, I think. Blazecallers, Kalimos, possible Al'Akir, plus probable pulls from Servant and Stonehill.

Without having a control oriented game plan, 5-drops would be about the highest thing I'd run (except the 5/5 taunts of course).

[PsyBomb]

Some thoughts from trying out post-nerf Quest Rogue:

First thing's first, the deck still functions. It's not as smooth or reliable as before, which is the point, but I still have about a 55% win rate against a momentary VERY non-quest Rogue-heavy mid ranks.

I will note that it feels much more combo than before. It takes significantly more forethought and planning to make it tick, and a certain willingness to go right to the razor's edge on health to get Crystal Caverns to go off advantageously. I also find that pinging enemy health early is much more important, as is controlling the board and keeping enemy tempo manageable. One memorable game I got the Core into hand around turn 7... then next turn killed my enemy without bothering to cast it, having gotten him to 10 from sparring with Deckhands with Mimic Pod Eviscerates in hand.

I'm not dusting my Quest card. I feel like it still has potential, and all it will take is one oops from Brode and a card will re-enable the deck to be powerful once more.

[Joran]

DISCLAIMER: Datamined stuff, so nothing official.

Spoiler: Future Event?

Show

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2983-p...-nerfed-frozen
http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2985-f...en-throne-card

The snoops at Hearthpwn have apparently discovered an Arena-based holiday bonus event lasting for three weeks. Presumably this is going to be before the new expansion launches. Fits nicely if it comes after this week's Fire Festival. But even if it's after, doesn't matter.

I don't mind the concept and gameplay of Arena, it's just that at this point in time I'd rather save the gold for packs of the new expansion. Free Arena runs (one free run per week, they say), with a bonus Knights pack on top of the standard Arena rewards? Sign me up.

I'm not going to turn away free stuff, lol.

Welp there goes my Rogue meta deck. I might tinker around with it, but I was being run over by aggro before the nerf. Need to try some things out.

Hell yeah turn 4 Jade Spirit turn 5 Servant of Kalimos. Err...maybe not.

I have pretty high arena anxiety, so I stopped playing arena about 2 years ago (I hate misplaying and having each match mean so much meant any misplay I made would haunt me). I have an unfinished Warrior arena with 9 wins from the BRM expansion. Looks like I'm going to have to go back into arena again; people are going to be so confused when I play Death's Bites.

[Hamste]

I have pretty high arena anxiety, so I stopped playing arena about 2 years ago (I hate misplaying and having each match mean so much meant any misplay I made would haunt me). I have an unfinished Warrior arena with 9 wins from the BRM expansion. Looks like I'm going to have to go back into arena again; people are going to be so confused when I play Death's Bites.

You could try to snipe Kripp with it. He always loves it when his high win arena runs come up against wild decks.

[Spore]

Oh glorious meta!
Highlander Mage!
Control Paladin!
Combo Priest!

I know it will devolve into Token Druid/Midrange Hunter spamming at the end of the month. But for now it's great.

[Joran]

Tavern Brawl is out: Play a minion, it gets charge/taunt.

Without thinking much about it, I made a handbuff Midrange Hunter and got my pack easily. I'm thinking ye olde Midrange Secret Paladin is good because it had one of the nuttier early curves. Maybe a more minion heavy Aggro Shaman, with charging 4 mana 7/7s...

[Anarion]

Tavern Brawl is out: Play a minion, it gets charge/taunt.

Without thinking much about it, I made a handbuff Midrange Hunter and got my pack easily. I'm thinking ye olde Midrange Secret Paladin is good because it had one of the nuttier early curves. Maybe a more minion heavy Aggro Shaman, with charging 4 mana 7/7s...

Fel Reaver and Bittertide Hydra.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hydra's probably a bad choice, given that everything gets taunt.

[Nerocite]

Vicious Fledgling and Frothing Berserker carried my brawl game, Stubborn Gastropod was another strong card.

[PsyBomb]

Divine Shields are crazy good. I did a Paladin run with nothing but divine shield minions plus some removal and backup, wrecked house. Squire, Minibot, Crusader, Chosen, etc. Free Taunt and enemies have to kill them twice? Yes please.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I know it will devolve into Token Druid/Midrange Hunter spamming at the end of the month. But for now it's great.

You forgot Crystal Core Druid I mean Fun and Interactive Jade Druid.

[otakuryoga]

im running around 85% against everything but hyper turbo facetard hunter with a deathrattle/nzoth priest

[Rodin]

Vicious Fledgling and Frothing Berserker carried my brawl game, Stubborn Gastropod was another strong card.

I found that the Wasp works quite well also. It's only 1 more mana, but you can play it onto an empty board in relative safety if you don't have a better play that turn.

Got my pack with Shaman. It turns out that a Charging Flamewreathed Faceless with Windfury really hurts. Who knew?

[Seerow]

Got my pack with Egg druid, 1 and done for me.

[Thialfi]

Face brawl my fanny! I had to play two games to get my pack and both went to fatigue. I was playing deathrattle priest, so I'm sure that didn't do anything to speed things up.

[Spore]

You forgot Crystal Core Druid I mean Fun and Interactive Jade Druid.

I wish you weren't right... I had a game yesterday with 10 tracked Jade Idols. 1 Mana 12/12 is fair. 1 Mana to not get fatigued is so fair.

[Rodin]

I'm in agreement with Kibler on Jade Druid - the problem isn't the Jades per se, it's the ridiculous draw engine that is Gadgetzan Auctioneer. That card needs to hit the Hall of Fame fast.

Without Auctioneer, Jade Druid often just runs out of cards. Nourish is good card draw but is expensive, and the other draw mechanism of 10-mana Wild Growth is similarly inefficient. With Auctioneer, the Jade Druid just hits insane lategame power turns where they play 3-4 Jades in a single turn without depleting their hand. Without those Auctioneer power turns a Jade Druid can just struggle to get back on board, and a greedier control deck can more realistically bank on just running the Druid out of cards in hand.

I was really surprised when Auctioneer didn't get forced out with the Rotation, and I expect it will get even greater scrutiny as the year goes on and Jade Druid keeps it's stranglehold on control decks.

Still not as bad as Quest Rogue though - I feel at a disadvantage against Jade Druid rather than the utter hopelessness that was Quest Rogue.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Yeah this isn't one of my favourite Brawls. Doesn't lead to the kind of games I find interesting. Got my pack, didn't look back.

But I am enjoying the double gold bonus, so that's nice.

[Seerow]

I'm in agreement with Kibler on Jade Druid - the problem isn't the Jades per se, it's the ridiculous draw engine that is Gadgetzan Auctioneer. That card needs to hit the Hall of Fame fast.

Without Auctioneer, Jade Druid often just runs out of cards. Nourish is good card draw but is expensive, and the other draw mechanism of 10-mana Wild Growth is similarly inefficient. With Auctioneer, the Jade Druid just hits insane lategame power turns where they play 3-4 Jades in a single turn without depleting their hand. Without those Auctioneer power turns a Jade Druid can just struggle to get back on board, and a greedier control deck can more realistically bank on just running the Druid out of cards in hand.

I was really surprised when Auctioneer didn't get forced out with the Rotation, and I expect it will get even greater scrutiny as the year goes on and Jade Druid keeps it's stranglehold on control decks.

Still not as bad as Quest Rogue though - I feel at a disadvantage against Jade Druid rather than the utter hopelessness that was Quest Rogue.

I disagree. Yes, Auctioneer is a ridiculous draw engine. But it basically enables multiple archetypes that are nowhere near as oppressive as Jade Druid.

I feel like the only real problem is that Jade Idol is completely unlimited. I would rather see Jade Idol changed so that if you shuffle it, the shuffled cards just summon a Jade. So you can choose, do you want 1 Jade now or 3 later? It lets two Jade Idols turn into up to 6, but it's a lot harder to get a situation in the game where you can actually do that. And most importantly you never get to a point where the Druid is putting out up to 25+ Jades on the board.

[Rodin]

I disagree. Yes, Auctioneer is a ridiculous draw engine. But it basically enables multiple archetypes that are nowhere near as oppressive as Jade Druid.

I feel like the only real problem is that Jade Idol is completely unlimited. I would rather see Jade Idol changed so that if you shuffle it, the shuffled cards just summon a Jade. So you can choose, do you want 1 Jade now or 3 later? It lets two Jade Idols turn into up to 6, but it's a lot harder to get a situation in the game where you can actually do that. And most importantly you never get to a point where the Druid is putting out up to 25+ Jades on the board.

Even with a Control deck I virtually never get to that point. By the time you're getting 11/12 Jades on the board, the game is over. Your change would do absolutely nothing to remedy that. How often in a match does a Jade Druid go through 6+ Idols? I'm betting it's rarer than you think.

The real issue isn't the Druid not fatiguing, because Jade Druid just crushes even Control decks before that would happen. It's the ability to rapidly draw and play Jade cards, and the combo of Idol/Auctioneer allows that.

[Joran]

I'm in agreement with Kibler on Jade Druid - the problem isn't the Jades per se, it's the ridiculous draw engine that is Gadgetzan Auctioneer. That card needs to hit the Hall of Fame fast.

Without Auctioneer, Jade Druid often just runs out of cards. Nourish is good card draw but is expensive, and the other draw mechanism of 10-mana Wild Growth is similarly inefficient. With Auctioneer, the Jade Druid just hits insane lategame power turns where they play 3-4 Jades in a single turn without depleting their hand. Without those Auctioneer power turns a Jade Druid can just struggle to get back on board, and a greedier control deck can more realistically bank on just running the Druid out of cards in hand.

I was really surprised when Auctioneer didn't get forced out with the Rotation, and I expect it will get even greater scrutiny as the year goes on and Jade Druid keeps it's stranglehold on control decks.

Still not as bad as Quest Rogue though - I feel at a disadvantage against Jade Druid rather than the utter hopelessness that was Quest Rogue.

Agreed. I feel like Rogue, especially with Conceal rotating out, doesn't abuse Auctioneer as much as Druid does. Druid has just as many low cost spells (Innervate, Wild Growth, Wrath, Excess Mana, Jade Idol, and Living Scales) and can use the Jade Idols to build a board presence and avoid running out of resources.

I like the playstyle that Auctioneer gives Rogue, miracle rogue is one of the decks I like playing, but it doesn't feel great when used in Jade Druid.

I believe the devs have stated that Auctioneer was looked at for the Hall of Fame, but they do like that it's a skill-testing card (decisions on when to play Auctioneer and what spells to use are really interesting and a time where skill and planning can be expressed).

I wonder if increasing the Jade Idol mana cost to 2 would be enough to dampen down Jade Druid.

[ChaosOS]

The core druid issue is forever innervate. In token druid it allows broken, explosive starts. In Jade Druid it's a huge enabler of their Gadgetzan turns, effectively discounting Auctioneer to 4 mana. There's a reason Black Lotus is the strongest card in MTG. So long as innervate is allowed to be a card Druid will always be broken.

[Mando Knight]

It seems to me that Blizzard will only be looking to add Hall of Fame cards with the next rotation, so Jade Druid won't be affected by the Auctioneer specifically going Wild anyway since the Jade Idols will go Wild as well.

[Spore]

So long as innervate is allowed to be a card Druid will always be broken.

The problem is more or less that the entire class stands or falls with Innervate. It is tempo when the actual Druid theme is flexibility (choose one) and ramping (PERMANENT mana increases). That and when you copy Magic you need to investigate the theme of Hunter and Druid together because both are pseudo green.

Hunter should be Green/Red imho (targetted damage, good creatures, Rush to Midrange decks) while Druid would more or less be Green/White. Thus, temporary mana boosts should be Hunter's thing. "Exhileration" or similar could be a 2 mana discount like a Preparation for creatures. In return I could see Druids getting filled mana crystals instead of empty ones via Wild Growth like in Nourish.