Hearthstone 23: The Evil League of EVIL

[Zevox]

The combo player didn't make the game stop being fun, the oppoment did. They lost, and then decided to punish themself for 30 minutes rather then admit they got beat. It's just being a sore loser.

For the opponent, the combo player is very much the one who made the game stop being fun. So he's choosing to return the favor.

This is very much an emotional reaction, not a rational one, but as someone who hates combo decks, it's one I understand and empathize with, even if I don't believe I'd do it myself. Little to nothing kills the fun of a game of Hearthstone faster for me than seeing a combo deck go off. It makes me hate the person doing it in that moment, and I can understand someone else who feels that way wanting to take it out on them somehow if they feel like they could. With most combo decks that's not an option though, since the combo kills you - but if the combo just gives you a ton of armor, that's another story.

[Stevesciguy]

Why do you hate combo decks?
(In case it needs to be said, I intend this as a sincere question, not some kind of accusatory one)

[Rynjin]

Why do you hate combo decks?
(In case it needs to be said, I intend this as a sincere question, not some kind of accusatory one)

He hates combo decks because he primarily plays control decks and they're his only natural counter.

This is also not meant to be accusatory, just what I've pieced together from the last few times the subject has come up. It's the same reason I dislike Control decks, being an aggro/midrange player.

I do still agree the armor combo is egregious though, whether you're fine with combo decks in general or not. It's cheesy, it's almost certainly based on a bug (I don't think Overkill was actually INTENDED to work that way), and it doesn't win the game. It is an inherently toxic deck even if the person playing it isn't intending to be, because the combo itself is basically an elaborate BM.

[Stevesciguy]

Apparently the devs were aware of the Bees + Overkill interaction since before the expansion released. So I'm not sure how buggy it is

[Zevox]

Why do you hate combo decks?
(In case it needs to be said, I intend this as a sincere question, not some kind of accusatory one)

Because they create a dynamic I despise. They don't care about anything that's happened in the game up until the point where their combo goes off - they care only that they aren't dead and assemble the cards involved in their combo, then they just win, regardless of everything else. Playing against a combo deck feels like playing an almost entirely different game, one where the elements that I like about Hearthstone are minimized. It feels (key word there, keep it in mind) like an illegitimate strategy that shouldn't be allowed to exist to me.

I can honestly say that I look back on the days when they nerfed Leeroy to from 4 to 5 mana because doing him three times with double Shadowstep in Miracle Rogue for 18 from hand was viewed as too powerful with a lot of envy, when I look at the kind of combo decks we've seen since then - and I already strongly disliked that back then.

He hates combo decks because he primarily plays control decks and they're his only natural counter.

This is also not meant to be accusatory, just what I've pieced together from the last few times the subject has come up. It's the same reason I dislike Control decks, being an aggro/midrange player.

That doesn't help, but I don't believe it to be the primary reason. I also play midrange decks at times, which fare better against combo decks, but I still hate playing against them even with those. My least favorite thing to do is to just aggressively push damage to the enemy's face, but that's what they force me to do if I want to win, and while I can do that better with midrange decks than control ones, it doesn't make it any more fun.

[Thomas Cardew]

Apparently the devs were aware of the Bees + Overkill interaction since before the expansion released. So I'm not sure how buggy it is

There's bee-ing aware of it. And there's deciding to take the time to fix it. I code tangentially to my primary work and I'm aware of at least half of dozen bugs in the software I wrote that I use regularly that aren't worth the time to fix.

[Stevesciguy]

There's bee-ing aware of it. And there's deciding to take the time to fix it. I code tangentially to my primary work and I'm aware of at least half of dozen bugs in the software I wrote that I use regularly that aren't worth the time to fix.

I didn't mean to say that it wasn't a bug. Just that I think that if they thought it would be an issue, they would've done something like specifying Bees to be only targetable on an enemy minion.

Of course, Blizzard has never made judgment errors like that before, right?
*hurriedly sweeps Jade Idol under the rug*

[Thomas Cardew]

To be honest, I think it's more likely overkill is coded wrong. It doesn't trigger when an enemy minion attacks the monster only when you attack with it. Someone probably got lazy and coded it so it could only work the Overkill minion's owner's turn. There's VERY few things that allow you to force enemy minions to attack on your own turn. Even fewer that allow you to attack your own minions. So someone just didn't think about how to set it up right in the first place to avoid edge cases and now it's too much effort to change for something that has relatively minor payoff.

[Tvtyrant]

Personally I think reanimator priest is the most egregious combo deck in the format. I played a game where they board wiped turns 4, 5, 6, then reanimated taunters for turns 7,8 and 9. Turn 10 they had gone from a low of 2 life back to 25 and despite having drawn the nuts hand I was down to nothing.

[Stevesciguy]

Personally I think reanimator priest is the most egregious combo deck in the format. I played a game where they board wiped turns 4, 5, 6, then reanimated taunters for turns 7,8 and 9. Turn 10 they had gone from a low of 2 life back to 25 and despite having drawn the nuts hand I was down to nothing.

Yeah, rez priest is crazy. I have no idea how it isn't a tier 1 deck.

[Tvtyrant]

Yeah, rez priest is crazy. I have no idea how it isn't a tier 1 deck.

Your combo got an article. Their version really is a "no way to beat you" but takes far too many pieces.

https://www.dexerto.com/hearthstone/...rn-1002768/amp

[Thomas Cardew]

To be entirely honest, I've wanted there to be neutral armor 'hate' minion for a long time. Something like Rust Ooze Battlecry: Destroy your opponent's armor, on bad days. Something more fair like, Battlecry: Set a hero's armor to 5/10/15, when I'm less pissed off.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

That would definitely dramatically change the design space. Health was made as a finite resource, which is why a card like Alexstrasza can exist. Your health will always be a number from 1 to 30 during the game. With armor, though, the effectiveness of a card like that will vary wildly.

"Set their armor to 10" is bad against someone with no armor, good against someone with 20 armor, and incredible against someone with even more. Every control Warrior would run it by default for the mirror. Plus, it's a hate card. I'm not a fan of hate cards, because they promote metas that revolve around "did you get lucky enough to draw your hate card?" and create more binary matchups.

[LaZodiac]

That would definitely dramatically change the design space. Health was made as a finite resource, which is why a card like Alexstrasza can exist. Your health will always be a number from 1 to 30 during the game. With armor, though, the effectiveness of a card like that will vary wildly.

"Set their armor to 10" is bad against someone with no armor, good against someone with 20 armor, and incredible against someone with even more. Every control Warrior would run it by default for the mirror. Plus, it's a hate card. I'm not a fan of hate cards, because they promote metas that revolve around "did you get lucky enough to draw your hate card?" and create more binary matchups.

*Awaken the Makers intensifies*

But yeah, you're correct.

[Thomas Cardew]

That would definitely dramatically change the design space. Health was made as a finite resource, which is why a card like Alexstrasza can exist. Your health will always be a number from 1 to 30 during the game. With armor, though, the effectiveness of a card like that will vary wildly.

"Set their armor to 10" is bad against someone with no armor, good against someone with 20 armor, and incredible against someone with even more. Every control Warrior would run it by default for the mirror. Plus, it's a hate card. I'm not a fan of hate cards, because they promote metas that revolve around "did you get lucky enough to draw your hate card?" and create more binary matchups.

And Acidic Swamp Ooze was useless against any class not named warrior, shaman, or rouge for the majority of the game but was still a great 2 drop. Remove X armor might be a more palatable solution. I left the set a hero's armor to X open to use on either hero for a reason, blatantly similar to Alextraza.

Hate cards in general aren't great, but neither are infinitely stackable resources. In general, I'd like a way to effectively deal with the other players design choices. Every class get some form of board clear to punish other players for playing large numbers of minions. I'd like a way to punish classes for just stacking armor other than a 1-1 whack them and take it away, or 'opportunity costs' given that the armor stacking classes generally are rarely giving anything up.

[Stevesciguy]

Managed to craft Mecha'thun today. Tried out a dedicated Mecha'thun Druid deck. Chose to play it in casual so I could learn it.

Without fail, I'd always end up with one extra card in my hand that I'd have to spend a turn playing. At first I thought it'd be fine, because this deck can work up 40 or 50 armor pretty easily, but by total coincidence I queued up against decks that could burst me down from that total, including a C'thun Priest and a Miracle Rogue

Really glad I chose not to go trial by fire in ranked. Should probably look up a guide or something.

[Geno9999]

Managed to craft Mecha'thun today. Tried out a dedicated Mecha'thun Druid deck. Chose to play it in casual so I could learn it.

Without fail, I'd always end up with one extra card in my hand that I'd have to spend a turn playing. At first I thought it'd be fine, because this deck can work up 40 or 50 armor pretty easily, but by total coincidence I queued up against decks that could burst me down from that total, including a C'thun Priest and a Miracle Rogue

Really glad I chose not to go trial by fire in ranked. Should probably look up a guide or something.

*Robotic giant eye voice* DID SOMEONE SAY THE ERA OF FLESH HAS ENDED?!

In general, I wouldn't recommend playing any Mecha'thun focused deck without either a Deck Tracker such as HSreplay's or Innkeeper, or meticulously keeping track of what you drew and what's left by hand. This way, you can not only plan out your current turn when you're trying to survive, but also the turns later when you need to set up the combo. Otherwise, you'll run into situations that you've stated before where you have to spend the extra turn dumping cards that gives your opponent time for lethal.

It's also especially important to pay attention to the cost of the late game cards in the deck when you're building and playing. The Mecha'Thun deck listed in HSreplay doesn't have any cards above 5 Mana other than Auctioneers and Mecha'thun himself for a reason, and that is because it's a lot harder to dump 6+ Mana cards when the deck getting empty.

[Joran]

*Robotic giant eye voice* DID SOMEONE SAY THE ERA OF FLESH HAS ENDED?!

In general, I wouldn't recommend playing any Mecha'thun focused deck without either a Deck Tracker such as HSreplay's or Innkeeper, or meticulously keeping track of what you drew and what's left by hand. This way, you can not only plan out your current turn when you're trying to survive, but also the turns later when you need to set up the combo. Otherwise, you'll run into situations that you've stated before where you have to spend the extra turn dumping cards that gives your opponent time for lethal.

It's also especially important to pay attention to the cost of the late game cards in the deck when you're building and playing. The Mecha'Thun deck listed in HSreplay doesn't have any cards above 5 Mana other than Auctioneers and Mecha'thun himself for a reason, and that is because it's a lot harder to dump 6+ Mana cards when the deck getting empty.

This very reason is why I played Mecha'thun Warlock instead of Mecha'thun Druid, when it was Standard.

I didn't need to dump my hand or kill my board, I just had to assemble Bloodbloom, Cataclysm and Mecha'thun and hopefully have 5 hp XD

[Stevesciguy]

*Robotic giant eye voice* DID SOMEONE SAY THE ERA OF FLESH HAS ENDED?!

In general, I wouldn't recommend playing any Mecha'thun focused deck without either a Deck Tracker such as HSreplay's or Innkeeper, or meticulously keeping track of what you drew and what's left by hand. This way, you can not only plan out your current turn when you're trying to survive, but also the turns later when you need to set up the combo. Otherwise, you'll run into situations that you've stated before where you have to spend the extra turn dumping cards that gives your opponent time for lethal.

It's also especially important to pay attention to the cost of the late game cards in the deck when you're building and playing. The Mecha'Thun deck listed in HSreplay doesn't have any cards above 5 Mana other than Auctioneers and Mecha'thun himself for a reason, and that is because it's a lot harder to dump 6+ Mana cards when the deck getting empty.

Oh yeah, I'm playing that version with a couple modifications:

Earthen Scales ×2 -> Claw ×2

Wild Pyro ×2 -> Living Roots ×2

Branching Paths ×1 -> Floop's Gloop

I do have HSReplay, I just wasn't using it because they were just casual games to learn the deck. Though, in hindsight, I should probably practice the way I intend to play.

I might swap the Pyros back in for the Claws. I panick-swapped them thinking "why would I want more minions in this deck!?" while forgetting how the card worked.

I think my other mistake was drawing too hard. I'd draw super hard with the first auctioneer, usually getting to single digits cards or even to an empty deck, then have trouble killing the second auctioneer.

This very reason is why I played Mecha'thun Warlock instead of Mecha'thun Druid, when it was Standard.

I didn't need to dump my hand or kill my board, I just had to assemble Bloodbloom, Cataclysm and Mecha'thun and hopefully have 5 hp XD

Yeah, Mecha'thun Warlock looks fun, but I'm missing several of the epics and legendaries, and I already spent all my dust on Mecha'thun.

[Joran]

I might swap the Pyros back in for the Claws. I panick-swapped them thinking "why would I want more minions in this deck!?" while forgetting how the card worked.

Yeah, Pyros are core for the deck. They help draw with the Acolytes and are really important board clears against Aggro and can help you clear your own minions.

[Geno9999]

Oh yeah, I'm playing that version with a couple modifications:

Earthen Scales ×2 -> Claw ×2

Wild Pyro ×2 -> Living Roots ×2

Branching Paths ×1 -> Floop's Gloop

I do have HSReplay, I just wasn't using it because they were just casual games to learn the deck. Though, in hindsight, I should probably practice the way I intend to play.

I might swap the Pyros back in for the Claws. I panick-swapped them thinking "why would I want more minions in this deck!?" while forgetting how the card worked.

I think my other mistake was drawing too hard. I'd draw super hard with the first auctioneer, usually getting to single digits cards or even to an empty deck, then have trouble killing the second auctioneer.

I used to play a much much slower variant of Mecha'Thun Druid that focused on Taunts/Spreading Plague when I didn't have the dust/motivation to craft Branching Paths or the cards for Mecha'Thunlock. Compared to the previous decklist, it goes through the deck much slower, but has more ways to wall off aggro beyond Wild Pyros and Swipes. Had a particularly hilarious win against a Token Zoolock through winning via tempo. I had my fun with it, though I don't think it'd stand up well to Wild's standards.

[Stevesciguy]

I used to play a much much slower variant of Mecha'Thun Druid that focused on Taunts/Spreading Plague when I didn't have the dust/motivation to craft Branching Paths or the cards for Mecha'Thunlock. Compared to the previous decklist, it goes through the deck much slower, but has more ways to wall off aggro beyond Wild Pyros and Swipes. Had a particularly hilarious win against a Token Zoolock through winning via tempo. I had my fun with it, though I don't think it'd stand up well to Wild's standards.

I was actually only playing the "regular" Mecha'thun deck as a bit of side fun. The deck I crafted Mecha'thun for is pretty similar to what you're talking about:

Spoiler: Deck

Show

### Armor Druid 2.0
# Class: Druid
# Format: Wild
#
# 1x (0) Innervate
# 2x (1) Earthen Scales
# 1x (1) Floop's Glorious Gloop
# 2x (2) Loot Hoarder
# 2x (2) Wrath
# 2x (3) BEEEES!!!
# 2x (3) Ferocious Howl
# 1x (3) Mulch
# 1x (4) Branching Paths
# 2x (4) Ironwood Golem
# 2x (4) Oaken Summons
# 2x (4) Poison Seeds
# 2x (4) Swipe
# 2x (5) Starfall
# 2x (6) Spreading Plague
# 1x (7) Dreampetal Florist
# 1x (7) Linecracker
# 1x (7) Malfurion the Pestilent
# 1x (10) Mecha'thun
#
AAEBAZICCP4B6RWe0gKZ0wLk+wLx+wLF/QLwiQMLQFb7AcQGig75wAKgzQKU0gKE5gK/8gKvogMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

I added both it and Mulch(replacing Jade Idol) so that I didn't have to auto-concede if I got Geisted. Also has the benefit of giving me a way to win matches against infinite decks, or decks that can heal enough to push to a draw.

I've only played it against the Innkeeper so far - just to make sure that I could actually target Mecha'thun with Mulch - so we'll see how well this really works.

[Seerow]

Still enjoying the Wild climb with Zephrys Jade Shaman. Realized I was a doofus not having Zola the Gorgon in the deck yet, so made a few more swaps to include it. Very next game was against a Deathrattle Control priest whose whole goal was to just outvalue anyone they came up against.

It got pretty silly. My Jade counter made it up to 27 before they finally conceded. I had enough in my hand to hit the 30 cap if they had managed to clear me one more time. But man grinding that out was so fun.

I've considered a few times going pure jade and dropping Zeph, but then I run into shenanigans like Murloc Paladin and good bro Zephrys ends up getting me like 4-6 hungry crabs that just totally win the game.

Similarly, run into Secret Mage/Secret Hunter? Hard mulligan for eater of secrets. They put out big wave of secrets, play it, boom secrets gone. They have no way on board to deal with it that turn? Well now I have two more in my hand. Oh they managed to last through two more sets of secrets getting eaten? Well I've still got enough healing to heal to full 2-3 times. Oh and bro zeph will give me "destroy a secret" minion if I get really desperate.

I also managed to out-Jade a Jade Druid, though he was honestly pretty bad and kept shuffling idols even when he already had plenty in deck rather than just playing them. (And actually between Jade Druid and the Armor druids, I wonder if a Geist might not be worth teching in)


I still do occasionally lose to the highroll hands from aggro decks. So the rare pirate warrior/odd rogue with a great draw while my early game bricks will kill me, but thus far the climb is still feeling good, I've made it from rank 25 to 12. Though honestly 25 to 20 felt the most competitive, immediately after hitting 20 queue times started going way faster and I started seeing a lot more random jank. I'm not sure exactly why that is, nor do I think it's entirely healthy, but it has meant I get to see more fun decks and fewer of the hyper aggro matchups. I'm sure that'll switch up again by the time I hit rank 5-10. So far the only longer game I've lost has been to Armor Druids getting their combo off. I'm sure other combo decks can do the same, but I haven't seen as many of them as I expected.

[Stevesciguy]

Yeah, just hit 15 a few minutes ago. I'm seeing some really weird stuff.

I played some kind of combo priest - at least I assume so. On turn 7 he milled a Ticking Abomination and instantly conceded.

I played a Warlock who seemed like he just filled his deck with what he was told were good cards. Ragnaros, Sylvanas, etc, with seemingly nothing giving the deck any kind of theme.

A Cubelock that only ran cards from when that deck was regularly run.

A friggin' MILL MAGE. What?!

I've also had multiple opponents concede randomly, one of them before the Innkeeper even finished introducing us.

So far, I'm 7 and 4. Mecha'thun has won me a few games, including the one against the mill mage. I don't think they were expecting that.

Although, I still lost the only game I got Geisted in. Didn't have a way to deal with his Bloodreaver Gul'dan

[Zevox]

Yeah, just hit 15 a few minutes ago. I'm seeing some really weird stuff.

I played some kind of combo priest - at least I assume so. On turn 7 he milled a Ticking Abomination and instantly conceded.

That would be Mecha'thun Priest. Combo is Reckless Experimenter, the 6/5 that pulls a deathrattle minion from your hand, two Ticking Abominations, and Mecha'thun. Drop them in that order, the 6/5 pulls Mecha'thun onto the board, the two Ticking Abominations explode and kill everything.

I played a Warlock who seemed like he just filled his deck with what he was told were good cards. Ragnaros, Sylvanas, etc, with seemingly nothing giving the deck any kind of theme.

Could maybe be someone running a Classic-era Handlock. It played both of those cards at times. I have a version of that deck always sitting around for when I feel like playing it myself.

[Stevesciguy]

That would be Mecha'thun Priest. Combo is Reckless Experimenter, the 6/5 that pulls a deathrattle minion from your hand, two Ticking Abominations, and Mecha'thun. Drop them in that order, the 6/5 pulls Mecha'thun onto the board, the two Ticking Abominations explode and kill everything.

Oh wow. Glad I chose to attack that Acolyte of Pain, then. He probably would've won.

Could maybe be someone running a Classic-era Handlock. It played both of those cards at times. I have a version of that deck always sitting around for when I feel like playing it myself.

That makes a good bit of sense

[Joran]

Big change to cards in the newest patch (even though it got relegated to a small text).

Discover cards no longer have a class bonus offering; previously, class cards would be offered 400% more likely, than neutral cards.

This is a pretty sizeable nerf for Taunt Warrior, since Frightened Flunky had a pretty good chance of landing on either another Frightened Flunky, Tomb Warden, or Armagedillo.

Also, the Dr. Boom Hero Power got nerfed, because the odds of landing on a specific Warrior mech was 16% previously, but now should be 6%. The Warrior is more likely to get a weaker neutral mech than that 6th Omega Devastator. Likewise for Omega Assembly.

This is also a buff to both HeistBaron Toggwaddle (the spell that summons Legendary Minions won't prefer things like Edwin or Face Collector) and Power of Creation (spell that summons 6 mana minions, since Mage has a few minions in that pool with poor stats).

Also, Elise now copies cards from Left to Right (previously random), so this is great for any Combo or Quest Druid that needs to copy specific cards.

[Zevox]

Big change to cards in the newest patch (even though it got relegated to a small text).

Discover cards no longer have a class bonus offering; previously, class cards would be offered 400% more likely, than neutral cards.

What?! Oh damn, does that suck. That mechanic in general just got a lot weaker then, since that was part of its strength, with how class cards tend to be stronger than neutral cards in general.

Just... why, Blizzard?

[Spore]

Just... why, Blizzard?

Maybe because chaining Flunkies has sucked out every nuance of fun playing vs warrior?

Ya know what is worse than a bad Scooby Doo reference? It making the game LESS fun AND not even playing into the Ultra Instinct Shaggy meme.

[Joran]

What?! Oh damn, does that suck. That mechanic in general just got a lot weaker then, since that was part of its strength, with how class cards tend to be stronger than neutral cards in general.

Just... why, Blizzard?

The provided reasoning is "Cards that Discover from a random pool no longer apply a class bonus. As Discover pools have gotten more specific, some are too narrow and repetitive. This change will increase the variety of cards from random Discover pools."

Discover a Spell is unchanged because all spells are class-based.

Gameplay-wise, this is probably a positive since it'll vary games more; players will need to play with sub-optimal cards more often, leading to more skill expression, and you're more unlikely to see Omega Devastator or Tomb Warden 5-6 in a game. It was a big pain point a year ago when Stonehill Defender got Tarim or Tirion really often, especially in decks that they weren't and couldn't be run (hello Odd Paladin).

Power-level wise, it definitely is a nerf to Warrior, since it's the class with the most Discovers in the current meta.

Edit: Oh, went into Wild to do a Warlock quest since Zoo sucks in Standard. Copied down the combo Snip Sn4p deck and comboed someone down turn 5... Man, that was dumb.

The combo is Summoning Portal, Mechwarper, then infinite Snip-Snaps on a mech (in this case, a Kangaroo Mech that I stuck turn 4)