Hearthpwn

Her purpose is to grant value in a control and midrange match. She's almost useless against aggro. So you need to replace her with something that gives you lots of cards in the late game so you don't run out of steam. The closest replacement would be Ivory Knight, since it's only 1 mana more, but gives you a card immediately and heals you OR Prince Malchezar since he gives you value, but he also makes your draws worse by thickening the deck by 5 cards, most of which will probably be useless against aggro... Lay on Hands is my second pick, but it's not as good against aggro at 8 mana, while Elise is 5 and 5/5, she kills one or two creatures in the mid game.

What's hilarious is that this may potentially have something to it. With tuning I'd say it may be viable, Who knows.

Gadgetzan Jouster is just way worse than Zombie Chow. Control doesn't care about the enemy healing for 5, so it's not worth the risk of not getting the 1/1.

But I don't think I"ve ever seen king Varian with a shield. He just uses giant swords. He doesn't strike me as Prot warrior.

I made legend 2 days ago with pally zoo with 73% win rate from rank 5 1 star to legend. Midrange and Control paladin just can't do it. They lack a finisher. Their only objective is to slowly deal with the opponent's threats but lack threats in response. When you're constantly on the ropes (as is the case with the class overall) you have no time to play threats. Guess which class plays in the exact same way as I just described? Priest, except they do it better. 

Zoo paladin fixes this issues above in that you become the attacker at all times, and if you fall behind, you still have equality and consecrate to devastate and then keep going (which Warlock does not have access to). Note that Demon Midrange zoo has trouble dealing with multiple enemies and loses when it loses board control, while Pally zoo does not, for reasons stated above. As Control or Midrange paldin, whenever you fall behind and have to equality+Consecrate to deal with their board, you NEVER have the mana to play another threat, unless perhaps you are at 10 mana and have a Shredder to drop. If this is not the case, all you can do is hero power. This is the classic issue with Flamestrike: You kill their board, and then you end your turn, which then gives tempo back to them and changes almost nothing.

Against hunters I won 75% of my games even though my deck had ZERO taunts. This is because from turn 1 I was dominating their minions. They never had time to hit my face.

This is not a control deck. Paladin cannot make control work since it does not have enough removal tools. This is midrange with Tirion as the biggest card. A control deck would have at least two 8 mana finishers, maybe 9 mana Ysera or Nefarian, like Dragon Warrior.

Secondly this is not his idea at all. This is literally the midrange paladin that was refined when GvG was released. It's paladin's only good deck. The purpose is to stuff a ton of cheap minions to fight aggro decks in the first three turns, and when they run out of steam, start hitting them in the face and win. It usually loses to control because that's what midrange does: it loses to control because it doesn't have high damage, and it lacks the big finishers to handle the opposing control deck's finishers.

The only reason this deck does well against Control Warriors is because of Harrison Jones, and the nature of the Paladin Hero power (creating minions infinitely  which warrior has to spend cards to deal with).

Quote from thepoxbox »

I think the devs are very out of touch with this game. They talk about the game more as if all they played was test versions of future content with each other rather than playing actual ladder. 

Ben Brode's constant "we give you the tools to counter cards" idea is just flawed.  This isn't a game with sideboarding. It's further flawed as evidenced by cards like Lil Exorcist and Scarlet Purifier, which you know they tested in-house to great success but just suck in the actual reality of things.
So just don't make cards that need one specific counter card to not be dumb broken. Dr. Boom for instance. 

The devs simply don't "get" this game. They don't play it like their players do, they don't have the same goals or the same experiences and as such they make obvious design mistakes that push the game in a frustrating way. 

This exactly. The 'tech' cards designed to counter the meta are all completely trash. They should help you win the game, not hinder you completely. Like how Kezan Mystic is a 4/3. Why can't she be a more playable 3/5 with that special effect? She gets killed by 2-drops and she's a very conditional tech card. Or why can't Something like Scarlet purifier silence the deathrattle minions? Or maybe do more than 2 fucking damage, maybe 3. Blizzard designs tech cards and always makes them fall just short of the mark of being viable when needed.

The ONLY tech card I can think of that is legitimately good without issue is Ooze. Good stats. You don't feel like an idiot when you have one against a Priest. It's a playable card on its own.

Quote from danman42 »

I've said it before and I'll say it again, they don't need more cards, they need to go back and rework the whole godd***n game. You can say 'aggro is so OP' or 'Dr. Boom needz nerf' all you want, but it's a symptom of a fundamental problem.

I've played through every expansion (started before Naxx), spent a few bucks here and there on packs, trying to support the game and build the collection. I can build everything from Face Hunter to Wallet Warrior, I've tried every one of them, done well on ladder (close but no cigar to legend a few times, just don't have that kind of time to invest), and strictly from a design perspective, the game is horribly flawed.

Completely ignoring variance and RNG (what most complaint threads come down to), just the base systems in place for classes are such that there's only every 1-2 permutations per class to build decks around. I mean, the Grim Patron deck was built 5 minutes after the card was spoiled. Everyone knew it was going to be an abusable psuedo-combo deck, and it was going to win.

Combo decks run rampant in this game with no 'direct' check to keep them in place. Much like Kezan Mystic, any targetted discard would be an auto-include as at least a 1-of in every deck just to keep combo on its heels. There are just going to be some games where you just won't draw a taunt or a Healbot, even when you know the combo is coming.

Damage is too splashy, the game punishes tight play by allowing pumps so high that they can deal lethal through a taunt on an empty board. That's ridiculous. If your opponent is on 0 creatures and you're at 30 with a taunt up, the mechanics of the game should allow the opponent to battle back into the game, not win outright.

On that same note, if you're not on combo, the game punishes being put on the defensive. Usually you're seeing the game end within 2-4 turns ahead of where you are, topdecks be damned. I've played Mage, Warrior, and Paladin enough times to know, you can get to a point where you don't have to let your opponent do anything meaningful for the rest of the game just based on what's in your hand.

Which flows into yet another problem. If you showed me two decks opening hands and their first 3 draws, I can probably tell you who's going to win with a fair amount of certainty. The game doesn't differentiate between creatures, secrets, weapons and spells...it's all just damage. Where in another CCG you might have cards that very specifically interact or work against a certain strategy, everything here is just based on damage that you either point at a minion or the player. That's it. The 'skill' this game requires is figuring out where to put the damage.

...and that's why people hate decks like Face Hunter and Mech Mage. One completely ignores the opponent's position, forcing the opponent to make them interact with their deck. Mech Mage spams creatures to the board, then holds back spells designed to strip away interaction (fireball for a taunt, for example), but then has this unnecessary synergy with Archmage that allows for a late game that rush decks should never be allowed to have.

So, what do you fix there? What do you nerf? All or nothing. You can't fix that many fundamental issues with the design of this game without reworking it completely. Couple that with a business model that is quickly becoming an investment of $100 just to get started, and you're going to see the game get to a point where it can't grow. Then they'll switch to the mode where they just try to bleed the loyal customers they have to death and they'll hang on a few years before this game is forgotten as a money sink.

This guy pretty much rekt the entire thread. Hearthstone is treading water as a game I think. It's just infuriating that after a year and a half the same two classes still dominate, and it's not a matter of how cheap the decks those classes use. If the decks were bad but cheap nobody would play them. This is a sort of rule in competitive card games.

I think a tweak that could possibly help is to increase starting health. Or like in alpha, have different classes start with different amounts of HP. This way the classes that are DESIGNED around slow stabilization and board control (paladin and priest) would have a real chance against aggro without having to design their entire decks around stopping it.

Quote from Stubblestubble »

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Quote from rdeegan »

Like you said, all three of those decks have more than 3 card draw in them. Hence, you shouldn't be going into fatigue first when playing LoH unless you have other substantial draw, which is just not needed with LoH.

playing midrange with no draw except LoH? Whats your secret? 

Are you being sarcastic? Most midrange paladin runs LoH as the only draw, aside from a lucky Harrison and mayyyybe Hammer of Wrath.

No unfortunately not. I dont really know anything about how control pali works. With other control classes you have to have answers to board threats and that seems like it would be hard to do without draw until turn 8.  Does it rely on equality to win or something? 

Control paladin is simply dead right now. Most paladins are running a cookie midrange deck that has about 14 cards for aggro, Sylvanas, Thaurrisan, Lay on Hands, and Tirion as the crown of the deck. The goal is to destroy aggro decks (almost impossible unless u draw ur only Chow and play Minibot the next turn) and then start pushing for face in the mid game. I find most games to be very close, which is what angers me about this class.

It is infamous in WoW, one of the largest heals in the game, if not the largest across all expansions. 

But in hearthstone it's just a massive tempo loss. Against aggro you MUST keep playing minions to contest the board. Healing in the end gets you killed. You can only heal when you already have a board otherwise you still just die. And you can never play anything else the same turn you use it, except on turn 10 summon a dude or play equality/Minibot. Why does a 5 mana robot heal as much as the largest (or one of) heal in WoW?

Would Lay on Hands be more welcome if it drew less cards and healed more? Maybe draw two cards and heal for 12?  

Argent Lance is trash card..

I can counter agrument almost all of ben brode points I totally disagree with him.

making one card better will make another card worse than it was, the other card was probably also trash tier so if a trash tier cards becomes more trash tier it doesn't affect the game at all.

taking time to balance, can't argue much with that but making a trash tier card mediocre usable card doesn't take too much thinking.. like why you would ever use River Crocolisk over hunted creeper? there is a lot to gain from it.

there is an argument that they both didn't think about it and it is that some cards you tend to open in packs.. and yeah you get literary nothing from them you bought a pack hopping your collection to be better and you get .. "oh that POS again"(see Target Dummy)

I think people who leave HS feel that the game is too stale I mean the reason to be annoyed by HS is that .. there are 103241 face hunters and it's not gonna change till the next change like with undertaker.. it took too much time to nerf the card it was crazy OP and the game was about who gets to play him in the early phase and who doesn't.

I think that buffing cards that are useless like war golem have more to gain than to lose it was never good to begin with.

nozerdomo being a 8 mana or 6/10 like kripp suggested won't brake the game it will just make him being played here or thare it's still too slow and it's still only a psycological effect.

The main agrument I have on buffing base and common cards is that it might make new players not play face hunter to somehow stay relevant to the game that's a big thing the starter set everyone get is just "here play aggro" if you make some base cards good.. maybe you can change the base game play to mid range or a bit more control... currently there is no way for a new player to play warrior (except face warrior).

I don't get what's so wrong having a "totally new game" for people it's that way anyway it's not like you gonna quit HS return after a year and expect an existing archtype to actually exist, if someone comes back to HS and see that everything has changed it would be quite interesting for such person actually that's my opinion though..

Oh god why... Blizzard continue to get easy money for minimal effort...

The Twitter post talks about what he lacks in height he makes up for in ferocity.

That screams dwarf to me.

Me, I think it's Magni. Muradin brands a stylish horned helmet a bunch, unlike Magni, and his lefthand weapon has a leather strap at the bottom, similar to the shaft seen on the silhouette there.

So I'm betting that's Magni being the Alliance representative of Hearthstone warriors. :)

If you were tracking you stats, why the hell did you play almost 200 games with whatever terrible priest deck you were running? The warrior at 70% win rate would have taken you there in less than 200 games total... 

IMO this is good example of why NOT to use certain decks in certain metas. 

Also, EU and NA are really similar in terms of player skill in my experience. However, the metas are VERY different more often than not and that should affect the decks you choose and way you play the game. With that said, Asia is generally easier - I routinely make legend there with under 120 games just playing on the subway on my way to work on a FTP account.   

Quote from Kreekakon »

My two cents on Face Decks is that they are completely fine as they are simply another way to play the game. I like to look at the strategy of how to play Hearthstone this way: 

You have one of two choices (Or a slight mix of the two).

1. Try to go for massive tempo and rush your opponent down while forgoing individual card value (Such as Face decks, and tempo decks). If you get controlled while going for this strat you will run out of steam. The strategy of this deck is to decide how to maintain your tempo advantage and/or kill the opponent before they are able to properly get back on their feet after which you will not be able to win since they will likely outvalue you if they are more late-game decks.

2. Try to go for a control value play which focuses on making every single card's value more valued than the opponent's which in the long run will win you out simply because you have more value than the opponent (Such as most late game control decks). The strategy of this deck is to try and hold off the onslaught and enter the late-game with a reasonable amount of tempo to start and beating down the opponent with your scarier cards.

The reason I think many people dislike tempo decks and face decks is that they are so extreme in their tempo strategy that people "feel" that they are unable to do anything against them because they are going so fast. If one feels that they are feeling this constantly I think that one's deck can be slightly altered to be able to slightly keep up with the tempo decks while also having the value to outstay them after they have been controlled properly.

You're missing a few.

Firstly, Tempo decks aren't really rush down decks.  Tempo decks rely on value by utilizing every inch of their mana.  Turn 1, a Mana wyrm, turn 2 a juggler, turn 3 an apprentice + frost bolt, turn 4 a shredder, so on till Rag at turn 8.  

They aren't rushing you.  They are using the highest value plays they can every turn.  They can keep up with aggro until they slow down midgame then keep piling them on.  They can abuse control's early game empty spots and snowball from minute one (which is why many keep confusing htem for rush decks).  Value is a MAJOR factor of a Tempo deck, which is why you won't see leper gnomes or arcane golems in one.  

Meanwhile, you also forgot Combo, which doesn't rush or seek out value like either type.  

As for the complaints..  I guess I'm numb.  I spent half of the first year on the forums listening to people scream about th e'legendary spam' of hypergreedy control decks.  Now that those are gone, I'm hearing complaints about games being too fast.  I honestly believe that if we were to nuke every aggro, tempo, combo, and midrange deck in the game then we'd go back to hearing complaints about 7+ legendary warriors.  

People don't want toalter their deck to fit the meta. They want THEIR deck to win and for people to alter THEIR decks to allow it.

Not trying to bash the deck or anything, but can you please explain how this is anything close to new? It's a standard control paladin with extra heals and Nefarion shoved into it. Also, how is the play style any different from an "old" paladin deck. You keep mentioning to bait out board clears but that seems like a standard goal for many other control decks as well. Adding onto that, wouldn't any half decent player specifically play around big board clears? (against a paladin specifically)

Quote from dwl_ »

^ Priest can do 2 damage for 1 mana even xd : Holy Smite

About removal; Paladin still has access to the best board clear in the game in Equality + Consecration. And they have the best class Legendary.

Not really sure if taking 4 spots for 2 board clears is all that effecient. Most Paladins only run 1 Equality. So strong they don't even run the combo twice? Flamestrike, Brawl, Blizzard, all of these easily contend for best board clear, and they only take one card and don't need to be combo'd so they are much, much more reliable. Also these classes have access to other very good removals, Paladin doesn't.

And Tirion being the best class Legendary is not exactly true, if he is, just slightly, The other classes have very comparable Legedary cards. He can get owl'd, and be a 6/6 for 8. Grom and Ant both have effects that are immediate, and in the current speed state of the game, it is much better to get guarenteed value on the turn you play your Legendary, a la Boom, rather than having to wait a turn with it on the board like with Tirion.

He is more critical to the classes success than any other classes Legendary, but that is simply because without him, they are lacking everything. Don't forget that before GvG, Paladin was unarguably the worst class in the game, even with the "best Legendary" Tirion.

If he is the "best class Legendary" and they were still the weakest class, it only helps proves my point that they need to give Paladin some removal/draw to match the other classes. Further more, Tirion might have been hurt by Boom more than any other card. 7/7 on turn 7 with two 1/1s to ping the Shield counters Tirion so hard.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, they don't need more cards, they need to go back and rework the whole godd***n game. You can say 'aggro is so OP' or 'Dr. Boom needz nerf' all you want, but it's a symptom of a fundamental problem.

I've played through every expansion (started before Naxx), spent a few bucks here and there on packs, trying to support the game and build the collection. I can build everything from Face Hunter to Wallet Warrior, I've tried every one of them, done well on ladder (close but no cigar to legend a few times, just don't have that kind of time to invest), and strictly from a design perspective, the game is horribly flawed.

Completely ignoring variance and RNG (what most complaint threads come down to), just the base systems in place for classes are such that there's only every 1-2 permutations per class to build decks around. I mean, the Grim Patron deck was built 5 minutes after the card was spoiled. Everyone knew it was going to be an abusable psuedo-combo deck, and it was going to win.

Combo decks run rampant in this game with no 'direct' check to keep them in place. Much like Kezan Mystic, any targetted discard would be an auto-include as at least a 1-of in every deck just to keep combo on its heels. There are just going to be some games where you just won't draw a taunt or a Healbot, even when you know the combo is coming.

Damage is too splashy, the game punishes tight play by allowing pumps so high that they can deal lethal through a taunt on an empty board. That's ridiculous. If your opponent is on 0 creatures and you're at 30 with a taunt up, the mechanics of the game should allow the opponent to battle back into the game, not win outright.

On that same note, if you're not on combo, the game punishes being put on the defensive. Usually you're seeing the game end within 2-4 turns ahead of where you are, topdecks be damned. I've played Mage, Warrior, and Paladin enough times to know, you can get to a point where you don't have to let your opponent do anything meaningful for the rest of the game just based on what's in your hand.

Which flows into yet another problem. If you showed me two decks opening hands and their first 3 draws, I can probably tell you who's going to win with a fair amount of certainty. The game doesn't differentiate between creatures, secrets, weapons and spells...it's all just damage. Where in another CCG you might have cards that very specifically interact or work against a certain strategy, everything here is just based on damage that you either point at a minion or the player. That's it. The 'skill' this game requires is figuring out where to put the damage.

...and that's why people hate decks like Face Hunter and Mech Mage. One completely ignores the opponent's position, forcing the opponent to make them interact with their deck. Mech Mage spams creatures to the board, then holds back spells designed to strip away interaction (fireball for a taunt, for example), but then has this unnecessary synergy with Archmage that allows for a late game that rush decks should never be allowed to have.

So, what do you fix there? What do you nerf? All or nothing. You can't fix that many fundamental issues with the design of this game without reworking it completely. Couple that with a business model that is quickly becoming an investment of $100 just to get started, and you're going to see the game get to a point where it can't grow. Then they'll switch to the mode where they just try to bleed the loyal customers they have to death and they'll hang on a few years before this game is forgotten as a money sink.

Wow, people really upvote just because it says "Top 10"? It's the same cookie cutter midrange pala that we've seen countless times everywhere.

Also, he/she might just used it in 2 games to climb to 7 and call it a day.