Hearthstone 23: The Evil League of EVIL

[LaZodiac]

Hagatha's... an Orc. Wow, that's a weird one to me. She seems like such an archetypal D&D Green Hag.

Yeah, she's just a weird swamp shaman. Lazul is a troll cleric which is probably gonna be hard to wrap your head around because in Warcraft Cleric's can just be classic DND heal boys or just suddenly ****ing ravenous shadow monsters depending on how they're feeling today and it's one of the cooler Warcraft lore things. Clerics are of The Light, and Light brings Dark.

For references sake, King Togglewog is a Kobold (this is easy given his expansion) and Dr Boom is a goblin. Rafam is an Ethereal and is as far as I know the first actual plot Ethereal Blizzard has ever made ever. So that's cool.

[Spore]

Yeah, she's just a weird swamp shaman.

Not really THAT weird to be honest. Shamanic magic heavily depends on the immediate surroundings. Of course much of that is storyteller/DM fiat but a shaman controlling the swamp and bog will naturally (heh!) have different abilities than someone shamaning in a volcano.

We (WoW players) know from the siege of Orgrimmar that Thrall does commune and ask/barter with the elemental spirits around and thus his magic does not work where the elements are enslaved by dark shamans (no, we don't know what raid group shamans can cast their magic normally inside that raid).

So commune with the spirits in a volcano, you summon giant earth and fire elementals. Commune with the elementals in a desert, you can have the classical earth wind and fire (for some reason water is off the charts but whatever). A swamp shaman has bog elementals, healing (shamanic healing is water based in Warcraft) and some odd corruption AoE (because for some reason evil magic always leaves puddles of "dark magic" around).

[LaZodiac]

For what it's worth when I said weird swamp shaman that was a knock against her character not her class. Hagatha is a weird swamp shaman, but not BECAUSE she's a swamp shaman.

[Stevesciguy]

First two matches of the season: Exodia Paladin and Mill Druid

The Mill Druid didn't even mill my combo(except for one of the bees). I was just trying a version of the deck without a way to instantly kill Mecha'thun and he happened to be running a silence

Thought I could stick it out and just whack him down with the hero power, but then he played N'zoth and got all his taunts rezzed.

[Psionic Dog]

Anyone else think Rogue is insanely overpowered in the this tavern brawl?

[Hamste]

I went Warlock myself. If you play summoning portal plus mech warper you can get easy infinite snip snap so as long as you can survive to turn 5 you win (Galvanizer to reduce the mech warper cost by 1). With Zephrys you could probably get it done a turn earlier if you somehow managed to keep a mech on the board but that would sacrifice a coppertail so maybe not.

[Zevox]

Anyone else think Rogue is insanely overpowered in the this tavern brawl?

The tavern brawl itself is just insanely overpowered by nature. Always being able to guaranteed get a set of specific cards just means the whole thing is crazy combos and nothing else.

[Stevesciguy]

I used:

Test Subject

Power Word: Shield

Embalming

Topsy Turvy

Radiant Elemental

Grave Horror

Two or three 7/8 taunts on turn 3, turn 2 if I have the coin. I played a bit more tavern brawl than I normally do, because I had a quest to complete. Most people instantly conceded.

[Seerow]

I used:

Test Subject

Power Word: Shield

Embalming

Topsy Turvy

Radiant Elemental

Grave Horror

Two or three 7/8 taunts on turn 3, turn 2 if I have the coin. I played a bit more tavern brawl than I normally do, because I had a quest to complete. Most people instantly conceded.

Saw this posted on reddit, and yeah it's really strong. Won first game easily with a concede on turn 3.

[Nerocite]

I ran discolock, my opponent afk'd and conceded turn 2. Might give combo pally a whirl later.

[Stevesciguy]

Saw this posted on reddit, and yeah it's really strong. Won first game easily with a concede on turn 3.

I felt dirty playing it. I had to take a shower afterwards.

Even dirtier than my first attempt at the brawl, which was Crystology, Glowtron, Galvanizer, Mechwarper, Skaterbot, and Flying Machine.

[Psionic Dog]

Good points. I thought my pogo-rogue {Pogo, Shadow-step, Gastropod, Minstrel, Zephrys, Zilliax} was hot stuff yesterday after it went 6-1 with its single loose to an even more degenerate mill rogue, but against Day 2 optimizations it promptly lost to both the previously mentioned priest and warlock.

[Thomas Cardew]

So I'm not sure if I just missed it or no one mentioned it... but it looks like they put in completion rewards on the tombs. Beating all 4 plague lords with the same treasure will upgrade that treasure. For example, Renos torch now starts at 4 damage instead of 2 for me and the Jr. Adventurer got promoted to Sr. Adventurer and now gives the discover treasure hero power after 3 secrets. Which is far more manageable, and a lot more fun, than having to win the lottery 4+ times. (Get secrets in buckets, draw secrets in game, draw treasure, etc).

Its sorta nice they added something to grind for, I just wish it carried over to heroic.

[The Glyphstone]

The Jr. /Sr. Adventurer was there from the start. I hadnt noticed anything different on the torch.

[Thomas Cardew]

The Jr. /Sr. Adventurer was there from the start. I hadnt noticed anything different on the torch.

I meant relative to say Dalaran Heist which tracks the wins but never improves anything. I must have missed the Jr/Sr thing from the start then, I had no idea they would upgrade.

[Seerow]

I had no idea about the Jr/Sr thing, totally news to me. Something new to toy around with I suppose (probably only in normal though, Heroic is way too punishing to do anything more than the first clear).


I didn't play at all last week after falling into a Fire Emblem hole, but I came back to clear normal at least. And for Chapter 4 I got quite possibly the best deck I have ever had. Playing as Bran.

First treasure I was offered was the "When you summon a legendary, summon 2 copies of it". I've grabbed that one in the past, but it was always disappointing with almost no legendaries offered. But the other treasures it was up against were "meh" so I grabbed it.

Proceeded to get buckets with 2-3 legendaries every pick for the rest of the run.

But wait, it gets better. Several of those multi legendary buckets were the Rush/Charge bucket. That includes Houndmaster Shaw, Darius Crowley, and Grommosh Hellscream. Bonus: Houndmaster Shaw summons a copy of himself and gives both copies rush. 4 mana 6/12 rush that makes all minions rush until dealt with is pretty silly.

Oh, but it gets better. My first tavern gave me the option to pick a friendly minion, and add 3 copies to my deck. Yep, hit Shaw with it. Then discovered a legendary minion to add to my deck... another Shaw. 5 shaws in the deck? Winning.

Next treasure I get is the one that always starts in your hand and draws you a perfect curve (2, 3, 4, and 5 cost card). This meant I always had shaw in hand on 4, plus stuff to play on 2/3, and I could go all in on drafting big because my early curve was set.

But then it got EVEN BETTER when my last treasure was a Scepter of Summoning, making all of my minions that cost 5 or more cost 5. So all the big legendaries I've been drafting? 5 mana.


So to summarize, turn 1 I draw 4 cards for 1 mana and am guaranteed to curve out. Turn 2/3 play whatever just to keep presence. Turn 4 drop two houndmaster shaws. turn 5 start summoning waves of big stuff, most of which double summons when played, and always has rush because no boss managed to deal with both shaws on turn 4 when I dropped them. I have never had a deck with more synergy with this, and 300-0'd the plague lord without ever being remotely worried. I am not certain I took any damage throughout the fight. It was absolutely a perfect storm of synergy, and I loved every minute of it.


Anyway, after that I went and did the final showdown with Tekhan. Was not as big a fan of that fight but I made it through by the skin of my teeth. I do like that the final showdown actually gives you treasures/hero powers based on what you've unlocked, so that was cool, and made it quite a bit harder for me since I had the bare minimums unlocked on Bran/Elise, as I only played 1-2 runs with each of them.

Opened all my packs, my golden pack was nothing special (sadly, still have not seen a legendary out of one. I think I'm coming up on the 10 pack pity timer for golden packs though, this is what our 6th one? 7th?), but my very last pack from SoU had a Golden Siamat, which is a fantastic card. So I'm pretty happy with my rewards overall.

[Rodin]

I think Ozara may be the most broken boss ever released in a Dungeon Run. Yes, even over the level 7 Evolve dude from the original Kobolds & Catacombs. I just faced a Tunnel Trog -> Totem Golem -> Dust Devil on turn 1. Despite getting my treasures and clearing her board on turn 4, she immediately managed to fill her board again with Sludge Slurpers and Feral Spirits.

I think I've beaten her once, ever, and that was due to her getting a bad draw into me having an incredibly overpowered deck. I don't even know how you're supposed to fight back with anything less than completely broken, because she has the ability to refill her board after you clear it and you aren't likely to be able to do so multiple times on turn 4-5, which is when she's usually killing you.

She's way harder than any of the Plague Lords, even the Murloc one. At least with them you have a few turns to get your engine going. If you can't answer 3-4 Dust Devils by turn 3, you just DIE.

[Stevesciguy]

If we're doing salty rants:

What is it about this game that favors aggro decks so goddamn much? It's not enough that they have ways of refilling their hand the second they run out, but I swear that aggro decks just get luckier than others.

I just played against a murloc shaman. His first few cards had both of his "give your other murlocs +2 health" murlocs, which rendered my board clears worthless. Got both his toxic fins, so he whacked through my spreading plague easily. Drew double fish finger to mill me for a single card, which happened to be my death knight. But that's not enough, nooo, he ALSO had to get double Murkeye off of his Megafin, in addition to drawing the Murkeye that was in his deck.

To top it all off, both copies of both Bees and Earthen Scales were in the bottom 10 cards of my deck.

What the hell are you supposed to do against that?

The other day I played against a burn mage who milled two of my cards, one with each research project. Those two cards? Both Earthen Scales. Dude won the game purely off of a less than 1% chance occurrence.

[Anarion]

If we're doing salty rants:

What is it about this game that favors aggro decks so goddamn much? It's not enough that they have ways of refilling their hand the second they run out, but I swear that aggro decks just get luckier than others.

Random deck mills are often just bad luck (though they may indicate a way that you should play the matchup differently to avoid wasting cards), but if you're getting beaten by certain cards that really mess up your strategy and they seem to be coming out way more often than you'd expect, it's a good guess that your opponent is familiar with the matchup and knows exactly what to mulligan for.

Which is the answer to your question. Aggro decks do well in Hearthstone because it has a generous mulligan and they often have a lot of redundancy. So they both have good odds of getting relevant plays in their opener and they don't have to feel bad about ditching even a good curve to try and get critical cards in the matchup.

[Stevesciguy]

Random deck mills are often just bad luck (though they may indicate a way that you should play the matchup differently to avoid wasting cards), but if you're getting beaten by certain cards that really mess up your strategy and they seem to be coming out way more often than you'd expect, it's a good guess that your opponent is familiar with the matchup and knows exactly what to mulligan for.

Which is the answer to your question. Aggro decks do well in Hearthstone because it has a generous mulligan and they often have a lot of redundancy. So they both have good odds of getting relevant plays in their opener and they don't have to feel bad about ditching even a good curve to try and get critical cards in the matchup.

How many people are expecting to play against Linecracker Druid?

[Rynjin]

If we're doing salty rants:

What is it about this game that favors aggro decks so goddamn much? It's not enough that they have ways of refilling their hand the second they run out, but I swear that aggro decks just get luckier than others.

I just played against a murloc shaman. His first few cards had both of his "give your other murlocs +2 health" murlocs, which rendered my board clears worthless. Got both his toxic fins, so he whacked through my spreading plague easily. Drew double fish finger to mill me for a single card, which happened to be my death knight. But that's not enough, nooo, he ALSO had to get double Murkeye off of his Megafin, in addition to drawing the Murkeye that was in his deck.

To top it all off, both copies of both Bees and Earthen Scales were in the bottom 10 cards of my deck.

What the hell are you supposed to do against that?

The other day I played against a burn mage who milled two of my cards, one with each research project. Those two cards? Both Earthen Scales. Dude won the game purely off of a less than 1% chance occurrence.

Bruh, you're playing a combo deck. you're naturally countered by aggro decks. Aggro decks don't need specific cards, they just need to SMOrc. they are countered (softly) by midrange decks and (hard) by control decks.

Their whole idea is to win before endgame, but combo decks put up zero pressure before then, so get SMOrced out.

The game doesn't favor aggro except in as such as aggro decks are cheap to construct so new players can always have a deck to play, so new aggro cards are commonly printed.

[Stevesciguy]

Bruh, you're playing a combo deck. you're naturally countered by aggro decks. Aggro decks don't need specific cards, they just need to SMOrc. they are countered (softly) by midrange decks and (hard) by control decks.

Their whole idea is to win before endgame, but combo decks put up zero pressure before then, so get SMOrced out.

The game doesn't favor aggro except in as such as aggro decks are cheap to construct so new players can always have a deck to play, so new aggro cards are commonly printed.

I am well aware that combo decks get countered by aggro. I'm just saltily ranting about how those two got lucky on top of being a bad matchup for me

[Rynjin]

I am well aware that combo decks get countered by aggro. I'm just saltily ranting about how they seem to get lucky on top of being a bad matchup for me

It's not so much they get lucky as like I said: they don't really need specific cards. You're digging for 4 specific cards out of 30; they just need something playable on curve, and run primarily cards costing 1-3.

They have like a 70% chance of having a play every turn; it's not luck, but deck building skill.

[Stevesciguy]

It's not so much they get lucky as like I said: they don't really need specific cards. You're digging for 4 specific cards out of 30; they just need something playable on curve, and run primarily cards costing 1-3.

They have like a 70% chance of having a play every turn; it's not luck, but deck building skill.

Getting two Murkeyes off of a Megafin, getting my death knight in a single mill, and getting both of my Earthen Scales with only two mills isn't lucky?

[Rynjin]

Getting two Murkeyes off of a Megafin, getting my death knight in a single mill, and getting both of my Earthen Scales with only two mills isn't lucky?

In a single game? Sure. But are you sure it's not confirmation bias?

[Stevesciguy]

In a single game? Sure. But are you sure it's not confirmation bias?

No, of course not. But getting salty turns off the rational part of the brain I can remember two or three games that I won due to a turn 6 spreading plague. I'm just extra salty right now due to my past few games being so unlucky

It's just frustrating to lose because your opponent top decks divine favor with an empty hand, or because the two cards your opponent milled were the only two cards in the deck that you cared about.

[LaZodiac]

Blizzard's been emphasizing aggro because it's the most active playstyle. Control-dominated meta leads to a game that has... difficulty surviving, and Hearthstone is not actually a strong enough game to endure too slow a meta.

[Stevesciguy]

I didn't know you got a reward for winning 1000 games of Hearthstone. Cool. I'll be able to get wing 3 of Nax sooner

Edit so no double post: I just oneshot the plague lord of death. Reno's third hero power + darklight torch is insane

[Thomas Cardew]

I didn't know you got a reward for winning 1000 games of Hearthstone. Cool. I'll be able to get wing 3 of Nax sooner

Edit so no double post: I just oneshot the plague lord of death. Reno's third hero power + darklight torch is insane

I managed to one shot it my first game with Elise, after taking like 8 tries as Reno. It wasn't even an absurd deck, I just got lucky. He didn't drop a sylvanus in the first few turns, so I manage to get through the first stage pretty quick. After that, I had the treasure that makes enemy minions cost one more. So the Plague Lord's turns were literally all just play Anub'Arak, trade into my Anub-Arak, rinse and repeat, while I slowly built up a absurd board and hand to refill that board after he wiped it.

[Hamste]

I like Elise has a built in combo deck but it can be annoying to do. Firing 300 moonfires at the final boss was so boring and time consuming.