If you'd like to see the top decklists from the MLG/ManaGrind NA Open #9, check out this thread!
First off, on behalf of ManaGrind and MLG I would like to congratulate you on a well fought victory. You faced some stiff competition from some really good players.
Yes, my hardest was my first round opponent and my second hardest match was the finals.
Really that’s kind of funny because you face off against two of ManaGrind's NA Team, Realz and Sp0h. In fact I was able to watch the match with Realz and it was just mind boggling in your sideboard choices.
Yeah. In the first round I played against nine who played a type of big minion Warlock deck which we don’t see much anymore. The rest of the rounds I had to do some rather creative sideboarding in order to win. Sp0h was probably my third hardest round. He forced me to bring in The Black Knight, it kills theAncient of War easily and you get basically a Chillwind Yeti out of it
. I’m glad you brought up the sideboard, because you used a lot of cards in your sideboard and some we don’t see played all that much. One in particular is Millhouse Manastorm. What was that about?
I sideboarded Millhouse Manastorm against Warlock aggro rush decks. If you think about it when it comes to Warlocks, the main spell you have to worry about is Soulfire which has a zero mana cost. So having Millhouse Manastorm really had no downside.
You really seemed to sideboard to cover every possible avenue of the major archetypes in current play. I mean you even had something to cover the Mage frost giant control deck.
Yes, I would like to thank Blizzard for making Rogues the "S" tier class with every patch.
Now what other games have you played and were competitive in them?
I was a semi-professional Magic the Gathering player. I also played Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokémon. When Codex goes into beta I will be a tester for that as well
.You know most of us seem to have a Magic the Gathering background. Moving on, what was your favorite part of the tournament?
I was happy to recruit a new member to my team I am forming, other than that the tournament was a series of games.
Now during your match with Realz he was shocked when you dropped Ragnaros the Firelord on the board and people even asked in the chat. Who puts a Ragnaros the Firelord in a Rogue deck?
Ragnaros the Firelord] was a series of really long discussions with some of my friends. It came down to what we would add for the last slot. Ragnaros the Firelord is a card that if you have board control wins you the game. Kind of like Hogger or Sylvanas Windrunner and a lot of other cards actually. Ragnaros the Firelord does it fastest. The second thing about Ragnaros the Firelord is it doesn’t attack itself, so that’s good against Shaman, Druid, big minion Mage, and against Warlock. I suspect that Ragnaros will become more important to the meta as more people start to curve to it. As it stands now people curve to Argent Commander but eventually they will curve out to Ragnaros the Firelord instead, because Ragnaros the Firelord is a great win condition. Every competitive deck should have one win condition, if not more and Ragnaros the Firelord is definitely a great choice for that.
The issue though I think many players are finding is finding that balance of early and mid-game play to support the late game play Ragnaros the Firelord.
Well here is what you do, you take the deck and remove a card. Most likely an Azure Drake and put in a Ragnaros the Firelord. You may want to play The Black Knight as well. For a progressive deck you don’t want to play more than three 6 mana drops and one 8 mana drop.
Thats great in tournament play but do you find it difficult to achieve in rank play?
Let’s get back to the tournament itself. Were there any competitors you were glad you didn’t have to face off against?
No. I was unhappy that Gnimsh wasn’t there, and Savjz. Basically players I wanted to say, "I am better then you!”
Yeah those guys show up to our tournaments a lot and tend to bring decks that are new and tend to rock the meta a bit. We saw that with the reintroduction of the frost giant Mage deck. They come and do pretty well, and then you got other people who win that no one ever heard of just beating them and winning the tournament. A lot of people credit this to the game being too RNG.
No, this is not a game of RNG. People who think this is a game of RNG will never do well. This is a game of understanding probabilities and understanding how to minimize the probability you will lose while and maximizing how you will win. You need to understand that you can control your own RNG.
You have a really good understanding of this game and your deck design and side board choices show this. So the question is,was there any deck design that you could not have dealt with?
Yeah that a fair point, since the nerf to Mages we have seen a resurgence of the Murloc decks.
I played twenty four games against a Warlock Murloc deck and only won seven of them before I quit the Priest deck and decided on Rogue.
Let’s move on to neutral cards. Everyone has their favorites and opinions on which are the best. What are your top four neutral minion cards?
That’s a hard question to answer because it is very class dependent. Example, Spiteful Smith is insanely good in Rogue decks, like best in game. It is however unplayable in almost every other class, same with Injured Blademaster. Now if I exclude the neutral minions that are only good with some classes: Ragnaros the Firelord, The Black Knight, Knife Juggler, and Dark Iron Dwarf. Those are some of the best neutrals but the top is Sylvanas Windrunner. She creates her own meta and can be a huge key to winning. She is the only card in the game that can turn disadvantage into advantage.
The thing is with Dark Iron Dwarf is it is a 4/4 that gives a minion a two attack buff which puts it a head of the curve. Which is important because in this game you value card advantage less than you do tempo? The Black Knight is only good right now, because of Druids. This may change next week, but for now he owns the druids.
In your deck what would you say was the MVP?
COIN!!!! No. Probably Backstab. This deck relies on coin more than any other deck. Being able to turn two Coin and drop the SI:7 Agent creates a lot of advantage as does coin Defias Ringleader. Though come to think of it, if I would have to pick a MVP I would go with Shadowstep. It won me every single game I had it in my deck.
Now what are some of the things you think make a good Hearthstone player?
Some things that make you a good Hearthstone player are: understanding of math, understanding of stock mana theory, and understanding when you’re ahead when you are behind. Understanding of the resources you have to maintain or regain an advantage. Understanding when to not try and play around certain cards and to just play around nothing. Two games in the finals I decided not to play around Lightning Storm. I looked at it and it came down to I could either play around Lightning Storm or play around single target removals that trade one for one. The probability of him having Rockbiter Weapon, Forked Lightning, and Fire Elemental is greater than him having a Lightning Storm. So knowing when to play around something and when not to is a huge skill.
Let’s talk about some of the changes in Hearthstone. One of the most notable changes is the new rank system. What are your thoughts on it?
The new rank system will decrease the amount of stars but win streaks will ensure there is some inflation. This system is the most well designed system. The system is effective because you can see your progression over time. The one problem with this system is they are going to do too many wipes. They should do wipes once every two months not every month. The reason for this is because, I can see why they are doing it, but when you look at StarCraft 2 grandmaster league that fills up after about a week. Here you will not have 100 players in legend rank to the end of next week. You want to have a period where players are legend ranked for about a month.
Now you had a slew of epics and legendary cards in your sideboard. How big is your collection?
I have every single legendary and epic in this game.
WOW!!!
I think people really over estimate the amount of money it takes to play this game. I have every epic, legendary, and rare in the game and it cost me 250 dollars. I will admit I played like 300 arenas and went 9-2 in half of them.
Unfortunately the new arena rewards are not as productive as they use to be in terms of card crafting.
Yes, people really underestimated the value of dust. I think they also undervalue golden cards as well when building a collection. If you get a golden rare that’s a regular Argent Commander right there.
Ok one last question. One other thing that Blizzard instituted was a gold cap. Do you agree with this or not?
The cap is ok. Where they set the cap is the problem. It should be 200 or maybe 150 that might be better.
Yes those are about the same numbers a lot of people are saying. Though the cap was put in to prevent botting, though many say there are no botters in this game.
1. Not Yet 2. Botting doesn’t make much sense in this game because it’s not an open market place like other games from Blizzard. The flow of money is from you to Blizzard’s pocket. There is no I’m going to sell my Ragnaros the Firelord or trade it for a bunch of other cards.
Well I think we are going to call it a wrap here. On behalf of ManaGrind and MLG congratulations and I hope to see you back here next week.
I hope I will be back next week as well. Also if people are interested they can join the team I’m forming, Team Navy. You can follow me on Twitter @EdmundNelson and contact me through there.
While the answers to the questions of this interview and the interview questions capture the spirit of what was said, these answers are not exactly waht was said. They have much better grammar, better structure and significantly less explination of why I went for something.
I believed this was mentioned to you before the interview. as per editing for posterity...Not to mention my poor editor is so use to having to correct my god awful abuse of the English language he just does it on every one now.
Why are you critiquing the editor at all? You misspelled "what" and "explanation" plus your punctuation isn't correct.
While the answers to the questions of this interview and the interview questions capture the spirit of what was said, these answers are not exactly waht was said. They have much better grammar, better structure and significantly less explination of why I went for something.
May i ask how would you adjust this deck for ladder play ? I've been playing this exact copy today.
Would love to put in shadowstep/sprint.
Shadowstep because it's awesome(and it works really well with cleef), and you mentioned it as an mvp card. And sprint because i noticed that i run out of cards with this deck compared to standard azure/loot/novice/fan/thalnos variations.
(but hey, maybe there is a better way to fix the problem)
Name: Edmund Nelson
Age: 19
Location: Saratoga, California
Twitter: @EdmundNelson
If you'd like to see the top decklists from the MLG/ManaGrind NA Open #9, check out this thread!
First off, on behalf of ManaGrind and MLG I would like to congratulate you on a well fought victory. You faced some stiff competition from some really good players.
Really that’s kind of funny because you face off against two of ManaGrind's NA Team, Realz and Sp0h. In fact I was able to watch the match with Realz and it was just mind boggling in your sideboard choices.
. I’m glad you brought up the sideboard, because you used a lot of cards in your sideboard and some we don’t see played all that much. One in particular is Millhouse Manastorm. What was that about?
You really seemed to sideboard to cover every possible avenue of the major archetypes in current play. I mean you even had something to cover the Mage frost giant control deck.
Now what other games have you played and were competitive in them?
.You know most of us seem to have a Magic the Gathering background. Moving on, what was your favorite part of the tournament?
Now during your match with Realz he was shocked when you dropped Ragnaros the Firelord on the board and people even asked in the chat. Who puts a Ragnaros the Firelord in a Rogue deck?
The issue though I think many players are finding is finding that balance of early and mid-game play to support the late game play Ragnaros the Firelord.
Thats great in tournament play but do you find it difficult to achieve in rank play?
We have seen those three cards make a huge come back in this meta, since the latest round of nerfs from Blizzard.
Let’s get back to the tournament itself. Were there any competitors you were glad you didn’t have to face off against?
Yeah those guys show up to our tournaments a lot and tend to bring decks that are new and tend to rock the meta a bit. We saw that with the reintroduction of the frost giant Mage deck. They come and do pretty well, and then you got other people who win that no one ever heard of just beating them and winning the tournament. A lot of people credit this to the game being too RNG.
You have a really good understanding of this game and your deck design and side board choices show this. So the question is,was there any deck design that you could not have dealt with?
Yeah that a fair point, since the nerf to Mages we have seen a resurgence of the Murloc decks.
Let’s move on to neutral cards. Everyone has their favorites and opinions on which are the best. What are your top four neutral minion cards?
Ah yes, Dark Iron Dwarf. Everyone’s favorite evil Dwarf.
In your deck what would you say was the MVP?
Now what are some of the things you think make a good Hearthstone player?
Let’s talk about some of the changes in Hearthstone. One of the most notable changes is the new rank system. What are your thoughts on it?
Now you had a slew of epics and legendary cards in your sideboard. How big is your collection?
WOW!!!
Unfortunately the new arena rewards are not as productive as they use to be in terms of card crafting.
Ok one last question. One other thing that Blizzard instituted was a gold cap. Do you agree with this or not?
Yes those are about the same numbers a lot of people are saying. Though the cap was put in to prevent botting, though many say there are no botters in this game.
Well I think we are going to call it a wrap here. On behalf of ManaGrind and MLG congratulations and I hope to see you back here next week.
While the answers to the questions of this interview and the interview questions capture the spirit of what was said, these answers are not exactly waht was said. They have much better grammar, better structure and significantly less explination of why I went for something.
I believed this was mentioned to you before the interview. as per editing for posterity...Not to mention my poor editor is so use to having to correct my god awful abuse of the English language he just does it on every one now.
I will try to join the next NA MLG then ;]
www.twitch.tv/gnimsh
Could we have a grudge match in the making? Stay tune.
YAY! :)
Hmmmmm Thinking I should run a book on a possible show down between these two....Would be interesting to see the odds and the spread.
Why are you critiquing the editor at all? You misspelled "what" and "explanation" plus your punctuation isn't correct.
I<3 this guy ^^^^^^^
@usscaptain
May i ask how would you adjust this deck for ladder play ? I've been playing this exact copy today.
Would love to put in shadowstep/sprint.
Shadowstep because it's awesome(and it works really well with cleef), and you mentioned it as an mvp card. And sprint because i noticed that i run out of cards with this deck compared to standard azure/loot/novice/fan/thalnos variations.
(but hey, maybe there is a better way to fix the problem)