Hi dudes. I'm RenoJackson. I'm a top Wild legend player, top 4 Hearthstone International Wild Open 2018. I'd say I'm one of the best deckbuilders in the format. Let's just skip the introduction and jump into the topic. What I want to discuss today is my two cents about the recent surge in Odd and Even decks and why they are taking the meta by storm. To become good at deckbuilding, you need to understand the fundamentals. Since I mainly play Wild, some of my references will be from the Wild format. Here are my arguments:
Consistency: a lot of people think that by skipping certain mana slots, it makes your deck much more inconsistent. That's true, of course, for most decks, EXCEPT Genn and Baku decks. Your hero power either does so much more (in certain classes) or is much cheaper to use that you don't feel bad at all about playing hero power just to fill the curve. Not to mention some decks benefit so much from their hero power (insane Dude synergy in Paladin, Murloc Knight and Kodorider Inspire synergy, immense weapon tempo in Rogue, etc.) that you often don't miss the drops you were supposed to put in your deck at all. I'd argue it's even more consistent than conventional decks, since you might not be able to draw into early cards to help you curve out and is forced to go with weak turns, while there is never a weak turn in Odd/Even decks. Hero Power don't stay in the bottom of your decks like some cards (looking at you Archmage Antonidas). You might or might not draw into Ship's Cannon, but you can always dagger up.
Resource management: this is something that most people overlook. I had a conversation with a guy earlier regarding my Baku Rogue, he asked if Baku worth the deck restriction and pointed out that if he wanted 4 damage for 2 mana he could just play Eviscerate. That's where most people tripped when building their decks. Eviscerate is a card on hand: when you use Eviscerate, you lose resources. Using hero power means you don't. This would mean that Baku/Genn decks would generally utilize their resource much more efficiently than other decks, which leads to card advantages as game goes on. This also gives you a lot of options to play every turn, because you can either spam your hero power or develop some cards, and even play cards that you wouldn't have had on your hand if you didn't play an Odd/Even deck because you would have been forced to use it in an earlier turn.
Deckbuilding liberation: Other tempo/midrange decks want to curve out. Even control decks need some good early 1, 2, 3 and 4 drops. That means you are forced to draft a certain number of cards for each mana cost in your deck. With Genn/Baku decks, you don't have to do that, therefore you're allowed to play more good cards in the mana slots you're allowed to, and have more spaces to play awesome cards that you couldn't play in normal decks because you can only put 30 cards in your deck. Level Up! is actually a great card when you can afford a deck slot for it isn't it? (Level Up! wasn't played in Wild Dude Paladin because Quartermaster and Stegodon made it excessive) Also, I was able to play Dr. Boom in my Baku Rogue, which was (unsurprisingly) insane whenever dropped.
I honestly believe Baku to be the best card in the set as a purely standard/arena player and deck building is extremely fun with the card. Also relatively easy since the pool is limited.
Well, thanks for the post RenoJackson, but honestly hsreplay.net gives winning percentage, which is the go-to to see what's working and what's not. It's much more reliable than any word from any player. "Experts" said Shudderwock was gonna stomp the wild meta, and I see it around 50-55% winrate... far from dude pally/ baku pally-rogue.
Hi dudes. I'm RenoJackson. I'm a top Wild legend player, top 4 Hearthstone International Wild Open 2018. I'd say I'm one of the best deckbuilders in the format. Let's just skip the introduction and jump into the topic. What I want to discuss today is my two cents about the recent surge in Odd and Even decks and why they are taking the meta by storm. To become good at deckbuilding, you need to understand the fundamentals. Since I mainly play Wild, some of my references will be from the Wild format. Here are my arguments:
Consistency: a lot of people think that by skipping certain mana slots, it makes your deck much more inconsistent. That's true, of course, for most decks, EXCEPT Genn and Baku decks. Your hero power either does so much more (in certain classes) or is much cheaper to use that you don't feel bad at all about playing hero power just to fill the curve. Not to mention some decks benefit so much from their hero power (insane Dude synergy in Paladin, Murloc Knight and Kodorider Inspire synergy, immense weapon tempo in Rogue, etc.) that you often don't miss the drops you were supposed to put in your deck at all. I'd argue it's even more consistent than conventional decks, since you might not be able to draw into early cards to help you curve out and is forced to go with weak turns, while there is never a weak turn in Odd/Even decks. Hero Power don't stay in the bottom of your decks like some cards (looking at you Archmage Antonidas). You might or might not draw into Ship's Cannon, but you can always dagger up.
Resource management: this is something that most people overlook. I had a conversation with a guy earlier regarding my Baku Rogue, he asked if Baku worth the deck restriction and pointed out that if he wanted 4 damage for 2 mana he could just play Eviscerate. That's where most people tripped when building their decks. Eviscerate is a card on hand: when you use Eviscerate, you lose resources. Using hero power means you don't. This would mean that Baku/Genn decks would generally utilize their resource much more efficiently than other decks, which leads to card advantages as game goes on. This also gives you a lot of options to play every turn, because you can either spam your hero power or develop some cards, and even play cards that you wouldn't have had on your hand if you didn't play an Odd/Even deck because you would have been forced to use it in an earlier turn.
Deckbuilding liberation: Other tempo/midrange decks want to curve out. Even control decks need some good early 1, 2, 3 and 4 drops. That means you are forced to draft a certain number of cards for each mana cost in your deck. With Genn/Baku decks, you don't have to do that, therefore you're allowed to play more good cards in the mana slots you're allowed to, and have more spaces to play awesome cards that you couldn't play in normal decks because you can only put 30 cards in your deck. Level Up! is actually a great card when you can afford a deck slot for it isn't it? (Level Up! wasn't played in Wild Dude Paladin because Quartermaster and Stegodon made it excessive) Also, I was able to play Dr. Boom in my Baku Rogue, which was (unsurprisingly) insane whenever dropped.
Well, thanks for the post RenoJackson, but honestly hsreplay.net gives winning percentage, which is the go-to to see what's working and what's not. It's much more reliable than any word from any player. "Experts" said Shudderwock was gonna stomp the wild meta, and I see it around 50-55% winrate... far from dude pally/ baku pally-rogue.
I disagree with the statement. Average winrate is not a definitive measure of how good a deck is. It's a measure of how easy the deck is to play. Because if we take avg winrate as the define measure of how good a deck is we can completely negate any skill involved in Hearthstone.
There are and has ben plenty of decks that do require some skill to play: miracle rogue, dead man's hand warrior or the good old grim patron warrior. All decks that had a very good winrate in the hands of the right player but probably not an overall high winrate.
I just want to nuance how a good deck is defined. To me winrate isn't the sole definition of how good a deck is but rather a measure of how easy it is to pilot. However, don't get me wrong: a deck with an avg. winrate of 60 % is a very good deck.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hi dudes. I'm RenoJackson. I'm a top Wild legend player, top 4 Hearthstone International Wild Open 2018. I'd say I'm one of the best deckbuilders in the format. Let's just skip the introduction and jump into the topic. What I want to discuss today is my two cents about the recent surge in Odd and Even decks and why they are taking the meta by storm. To become good at deckbuilding, you need to understand the fundamentals. Since I mainly play Wild, some of my references will be from the Wild format. Here are my arguments:
Consistency: a lot of people think that by skipping certain mana slots, it makes your deck much more inconsistent. That's true, of course, for most decks, EXCEPT Genn and Baku decks. Your hero power either does so much more (in certain classes) or is much cheaper to use that you don't feel bad at all about playing hero power just to fill the curve. Not to mention some decks benefit so much from their hero power (insane Dude synergy in Paladin, Murloc Knight and Kodorider Inspire synergy, immense weapon tempo in Rogue, etc.) that you often don't miss the drops you were supposed to put in your deck at all. I'd argue it's even more consistent than conventional decks, since you might not be able to draw into early cards to help you curve out and is forced to go with weak turns, while there is never a weak turn in Odd/Even decks. Hero Power don't stay in the bottom of your decks like some cards (looking at you Archmage Antonidas). You might or might not draw into Ship's Cannon, but you can always dagger up.
Resource management: this is something that most people overlook. I had a conversation with a guy earlier regarding my Baku Rogue, he asked if Baku worth the deck restriction and pointed out that if he wanted 4 damage for 2 mana he could just play Eviscerate. That's where most people tripped when building their decks. Eviscerate is a card on hand: when you use Eviscerate, you lose resources. Using hero power means you don't. This would mean that Baku/Genn decks would generally utilize their resource much more efficiently than other decks, which leads to card advantages as game goes on. This also gives you a lot of options to play every turn, because you can either spam your hero power or develop some cards, and even play cards that you wouldn't have had on your hand if you didn't play an Odd/Even deck because you would have been forced to use it in an earlier turn.
Deckbuilding liberation: Other tempo/midrange decks want to curve out. Even control decks need some good early 1, 2, 3 and 4 drops. That means you are forced to draft a certain number of cards for each mana cost in your deck. With Genn/Baku decks, you don't have to do that, therefore you're allowed to play more good cards in the mana slots you're allowed to, and have more spaces to play awesome cards that you couldn't play in normal decks because you can only put 30 cards in your deck. Level Up! is actually a great card when you can afford a deck slot for it isn't it? (Level Up! wasn't played in Wild Dude Paladin because Quartermaster and Stegodon made it excessive) Also, I was able to play Dr. Boom in my Baku Rogue, which was (unsurprisingly) insane whenever dropped.
The deck that I hit legend with:
That's all I could think of right now. Let me know what you think and if there's any point you'd like to discuss further.
RenoJackson#11673
any replacement for patches i disenchanted it when it was nerfed
i play cubelock and lose 5 games in a row then i play odd paladin and get my stars back wash rinse repeat
A good post from a good player? Am I on the right forums?
Anger is the punishment we give ourselves for someone else's mistake.
I honestly believe Baku to be the best card in the set as a purely standard/arena player and deck building is extremely fun with the card. Also relatively easy since the pool is limited.
Well, thanks for the post RenoJackson, but honestly hsreplay.net gives winning percentage, which is the go-to to see what's working and what's not.
It's much more reliable than any word from any player.
"Experts" said Shudderwock was gonna stomp the wild meta, and I see it around 50-55% winrate... far from dude pally/ baku pally-rogue.
There's never a best, world constantly evolve.
I just want to nuance how a good deck is defined. To me winrate isn't the sole definition of how good a deck is but rather a measure of how easy it is to pilot. However, don't get me wrong: a deck with an avg. winrate of 60 % is a very good deck.