I've long been a fan of this site. I took a little break from HS a while ago, and this site along with it, but I came back with a fury. One thing that I noticed that is different, I'm not seeing many decks being made to help the community get through the new achievement cycles. I used to love playing the decks (FTP and more) that people came up with to try and kill off the achievements.
Does anyone still do this, or are we all trying to be competitive 100%? I know that some content creators like FunkiMonkey do all types of off meta decks that incorporate some of the achievements, but nothing really focused on them. Am I up in the night about this, or are those decks hidden from view now?
PS, I totally would do this myself, but I am HORRIBLE about making decks. The last deck I created did really well, and then key cards were nerfed within a few days... so I stick to seeing what other people can do. I'm a player, not a creator :(
I am an achievement hunter as well since March of the Lich King, at least for the cards I actually pulled from packs. If you need help with one, feel free to drop a message or open a thread on it, though most of the Badlands achievements are boiling down to "play card X two hundred times".
One tip I would want to give immediately: Blindeye Sharpshooter and the Warlock Excavation cards, including Tram Conductor Gerry currently have a full refund bonus. So, you could do their achievements (trigger Sharpshooter 90 times, attack 120 times with tram cars), and disenchant them again. Sharpshooter should take about 2-3 hours, tram cars took me more like 4, but I also didn't have any Trolley Problems.
Zeddy does a guide for this every expansion, including tips, tricks and decklists. He just released his version for Showdown in the Badlands:
It's a good resource. Unfortunately, it's Zeddy. ._.
Here is also a written version of his guide, which I personally find a whole lot more tolerable.
I haven't done many yet. I did Mismatched Fossils, and it took me several hours. Felt like an eternity. The best you can do is cast it twice with Twinbow Terrorcoil in a Spell/Naga Hunter (at least enough spells to reliably have Twinbow active), and hope you get a lot of 1 and 2 cost minions offered, since half the time you are dead before you even get to play the stupid cards. Just horrible. If you go all spells (bananas and monkeys) Mantle Shaper can be conventiently included. Otherwise, just put it in your typical Discoverino Mage.
I also did Therazane, which didn't take as long as I thought and the deck was far from optimized. Best approach is probably Rogue with Shattershambler and Scourge Illusionist to start playing Elementals as soon as possible.
I could do Hidden Gem while doing other things, but there definitely was some luck involved. I'm sure you could do a setup do get the 12 safely in one turn, but I haven't looked into it.
Google doc file with the mini-set achievements if you need. I did all of them against bots thanks to low MMR, so didn't encounter the problems like "dead by turn 5", "tech card ruined achievement" and so on.
Hidden Gem deck in my doc file was quickly assembled without much thinking. Easily did on the first try, and didn't even use Wild Pyromancer.
As for Therazane - the achievement progress depends on the number of her buffs. If her Deathrattle triggered once, you get 1 point after each played elemental, but if it was triggered twice - each played elemental gives 2 points, and so on. That's why I picked DK instead of Rogue. He can easily do a lot of triggers thanks to Death Growl and Yelling Yodeler. Playing 6-7 minions buffed 4-7 times is much faster here than playing 10-15 minions buffed once.
Thanks for the doc! Will definitely look into it when doing the bottles for Priest (urgh!).
Hand space wasn't too big of an issue for me with Fossils. Sometimes I had to delay playing Fossils, but the bigger issue for me was that often enough I was forced to pick something that costs 6 or more. I can see the idea to have more consistent progress instead of maximizing progress, but getting to play the card was less a problem for me than needing to play expensive cards it regularly generated.
The bit about Therazane is really interesting. I played Hunter (as I said, far from optimized) and occasionally managed to get Yodeler on her, but I haven't always checked how much progress I made per game. Good to know that multiple triggers also boost the progress per Elemental.
I am not quite done with Trogg Gemtosser, but made good progress while doing Dragon Tales in Druid (53 kills so far), Of course, you won't get much kills with him when half your opponents play big minions and all that nonsense. I remember playing against a Paladin and it was the only Paladin in the world to not even use Boogie Down. But the card is so easy to include that you get some small progress here and there, and when you keep a board presence it is oftentimes possible to weaken enemy minions and make Trogg kills more likely (80 is a BS number though).
My only issue with Trogg is, I already did Sludge Barrels in Warlock before the mini-set. All that remains is a bit more Soulfreeze and about half of Furnace Fuel, so there is a good chance I have to do some overtime for Trogg.
As far as annoying is concerned, I think nothing will bother me more this expansion than the 200 active Quickdraws, my personal single worst keyword in Hearthstone history, and the achievement made me hate it even more. I considered disenchanting Horseshoe Slinger out of spite, just for how many times I drew it without being able to play it, or I was forced to play him when it was a complete waste of mana. There were annoying achievements before, cerainly no shortage in this expansion either, but forcing this shitbrick of a keyword for probably close to 100 games made me want to puke.
Sidenote: The Gyreworm combo I described above worked like a charm (unless you are stupid and accidentally press hero power out of reflex, like I did twice).
I've long been a fan of this site. I took a little break from HS a while ago, and this site along with it, but I came back with a fury. One thing that I noticed that is different, I'm not seeing many decks being made to help the community get through the new achievement cycles. I used to love playing the decks (FTP and more) that people came up with to try and kill off the achievements.
Does anyone still do this, or are we all trying to be competitive 100%? I know that some content creators like FunkiMonkey do all types of off meta decks that incorporate some of the achievements, but nothing really focused on them. Am I up in the night about this, or are those decks hidden from view now?
PS, I totally would do this myself, but I am HORRIBLE about making decks. The last deck I created did really well, and then key cards were nerfed within a few days... so I stick to seeing what other people can do. I'm a player, not a creator :(
Zeddy does a guide for this every expansion, including tips, tricks and decklists. He just released his version for Showdown in the Badlands:
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
I am an achievement hunter as well since March of the Lich King, at least for the cards I actually pulled from packs. If you need help with one, feel free to drop a message or open a thread on it, though most of the Badlands achievements are boiling down to "play card X two hundred times".
One tip I would want to give immediately: Blindeye Sharpshooter and the Warlock Excavation cards, including Tram Conductor Gerry currently have a full refund bonus. So, you could do their achievements (trigger Sharpshooter 90 times, attack 120 times with tram cars), and disenchant them again. Sharpshooter should take about 2-3 hours, tram cars took me more like 4, but I also didn't have any Trolley Problems.
It's a good resource. Unfortunately, it's Zeddy. ._.
Here is also a written version of his guide, which I personally find a whole lot more tolerable.
Anything out there for the updated mini set achievements?
I haven't done many yet. I did Mismatched Fossils, and it took me several hours. Felt like an eternity. The best you can do is cast it twice with Twinbow Terrorcoil in a Spell/Naga Hunter (at least enough spells to reliably have Twinbow active), and hope you get a lot of 1 and 2 cost minions offered, since half the time you are dead before you even get to play the stupid cards. Just horrible. If you go all spells (bananas and monkeys) Mantle Shaper can be conventiently included. Otherwise, just put it in your typical Discoverino Mage.
I also did Therazane, which didn't take as long as I thought and the deck was far from optimized. Best approach is probably Rogue with Shattershambler and Scourge Illusionist to start playing Elementals as soon as possible.
My idea for Iridescent Gyreworm is a 10 mana combo in Death Knight: Crop Rotation + Gyreworm + Yelling Yodeler, but I haven't done it yet.
I could do Hidden Gem while doing other things, but there definitely was some luck involved. I'm sure you could do a setup do get the 12 safely in one turn, but I haven't looked into it.
Google doc file with the mini-set achievements if you need. I did all of them against bots thanks to low MMR, so didn't encounter the problems like "dead by turn 5", "tech card ruined achievement" and so on.
For Mismatched Fossils I used DK because of targetted draw - Northern Navigation. Ofc thought about Twinbow Terrorcoil and Dryscale Deputy, but when your hand is full of spells and spell-generating cards, you just don't have time/mana/space to generate or play all these discovered minions.
Hidden Gem deck in my doc file was quickly assembled without much thinking. Easily did on the first try, and didn't even use Wild Pyromancer.
As for Therazane - the achievement progress depends on the number of her buffs. If her Deathrattle triggered once, you get 1 point after each played elemental, but if it was triggered twice - each played elemental gives 2 points, and so on. That's why I picked DK instead of Rogue. He can easily do a lot of triggers thanks to Death Growl and Yelling Yodeler. Playing 6-7 minions buffed 4-7 times is much faster here than playing 10-15 minions buffed once.
For me Trogg Gemtosser was the most annoying and the longest even with targetted draw (Pendant of Earth) and a lot of ramp.
Thanks for the doc! Will definitely look into it when doing the bottles for Priest (urgh!).
Hand space wasn't too big of an issue for me with Fossils. Sometimes I had to delay playing Fossils, but the bigger issue for me was that often enough I was forced to pick something that costs 6 or more. I can see the idea to have more consistent progress instead of maximizing progress, but getting to play the card was less a problem for me than needing to play expensive cards it regularly generated.
The bit about Therazane is really interesting. I played Hunter (as I said, far from optimized) and occasionally managed to get Yodeler on her, but I haven't always checked how much progress I made per game. Good to know that multiple triggers also boost the progress per Elemental.
I am not quite done with Trogg Gemtosser, but made good progress while doing Dragon Tales in Druid (53 kills so far), Of course, you won't get much kills with him when half your opponents play big minions and all that nonsense. I remember playing against a Paladin and it was the only Paladin in the world to not even use Boogie Down. But the card is so easy to include that you get some small progress here and there, and when you keep a board presence it is oftentimes possible to weaken enemy minions and make Trogg kills more likely (80 is a BS number though).
My only issue with Trogg is, I already did Sludge Barrels in Warlock before the mini-set. All that remains is a bit more Soulfreeze and about half of Furnace Fuel, so there is a good chance I have to do some overtime for Trogg.
As far as annoying is concerned, I think nothing will bother me more this expansion than the 200 active Quickdraws, my personal single worst keyword in Hearthstone history, and the achievement made me hate it even more. I considered disenchanting Horseshoe Slinger out of spite, just for how many times I drew it without being able to play it, or I was forced to play him when it was a complete waste of mana. There were annoying achievements before, cerainly no shortage in this expansion either, but forcing this shitbrick of a keyword for probably close to 100 games made me want to puke.
Sidenote: The Gyreworm combo I described above worked like a charm (unless you are stupid and accidentally press hero power out of reflex, like I did twice).