Hearthpwn

Quote from palpitoad93 >>

Quote from RhoaPwr >>

 

 

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 I actually really like the idea of running a small elemental engine to help stave off aggro decks, Flame Elemental generators are the most important cards in the deck and you can very reliably trigger a turn 4 Stoneshaper to stall you long enough to finish the quest. I haven't really played with the idea, but a few suggestions: Swap the Shadowcasters for Gadgetzan Ferrymans. It's a much faster card, has more flexibility, and can be used to complete the quest itself (bouncing Gadgetzan Ferrymans into themselves is actually quite reliable). Vanish is another slow card that's more useful against control, but when you're getting 5/5s endlessly, you're going to run over control anyway. Backstab to fight off Aggro is a better option IMO. Finally I'd highly recommend a Swashburglar+Patches package as well considering you're already running Southsea Deckhand (possibly in the Bilefin Tidehunter and Glacial Elemental slots?) and with a deck that inherently carries little card draw, being able to generate free resources is worth a second look.

I'm having a lot of fun with the deck at the moment. Here is a summary of my experiences and observations, with my deck list at the bottom:

The Flame Elemental tokens are indeed the easiest way to finish the guest quickly, if you can start with them in your hand or draw them early. This happens quite often but not often enough, so I believe it's necessary to have a plan B to finish the quest "the hard way", by copying and bouncing other minions. 

A card that I've found can assist a lot with that plan B is Mimic Pod. I'm running a version of the deck with 21 minions and 9 spells, so Mimic Pod gives you two copies of a minion 2/3 of the time, which you can copy and bounce into the 4 necessary with the other tools in the deck. It's not the ideal setting, but better than not ever completing the quest. 

I was positively surprised by how decently reliable it is to finish the quest. Even when I got kinda screwed with mulligan RNG, the deck still gave me the tools necessary to eventually finish the quest. I've been able to finish it in every single game I've played (although that doesn't mean winning every single game, of course). 

The hardest match-ups I've had so far were (surprise!) aggro decks, such as Murloc Shaman, Murloc Paladin, and (still) Pirate Warrior. I didn't get completely destroyed by aggro, though, and were able to win a few times (though I mostly lost). The times when I won against aggro were largely due to being able to play Tar Creeper on turn 3 into Tol'vir Stoneshaper on turn 4, which are not part of the main toolkit of the deck but I feel are necessary to hold off the aggro insanity. The Stoneshaper can be triggered very reliably in this deck due to already existing elemental cards used to finish the quest, plus Tar Creeper and also Glacial Shard. 

Aggro Warlock, although still being aggro, didn't give me much trouble yet. I've been able to hold off the initial wave of aggro while still finishing my quest, then seeing the warlock finish his own quest and still controlling the hordes of imps coming from the portal with my 5/5s and eventually winning. 

The easiest match-ups so far have been Priest and Mage. Their initial turns are not aggressive or quick enough, which usually gives me plenty of time and space to finish my quest while they are still halfway into theirs (specially mages). 

Hunter has been the closest to my deck in terms of power level. I can win a decent amount of times but still sometimes lose. 

Some cards in my list that I like a lot are Bilefin Tidehunter and Glacial Shard. I haven't seem them on other people's lists, which are often more value-heavy while mine is really budget, but they offer a lot of defense in the form of Taunt and Freeze. I may have to replace them once I craft more valuable cards to increase the power level of the deck (such as Patches, which I currently don't own).

Today (launch day) I was able to go from rank 21 to rank 13, a first for me, as I've only been able to get to rank 15. I play f2p and opened 24 Un'goro packs so far, one of which contained The Caverns Below. 

Anyway, here's the list:

Here's my attempt at it... 

I like the Stoneshaper to fill a slot with something of value that can be played before finishing the quest for a decent board presence. If played after the quest is finished it's still very decent and of course gets its attack buffed to 5. Glacial Shard is another cheap way to activate it besides the other elementals already present, and is also good later in the game for the Freeze + cheap 5/5 body.

I think Bilefin Tidehunter gets a lot of value in this deck, dropping two 5/5 minions by using only one card, one of the them with Taunt.

For card draw there's the Engineer, Mimic Pod and it might be interesting to try Nat Pagle. At worse it's a 5/5 for 2 mana that your opponent might wanna deal with.

I'm not sure how good Mimic Pod will be. After finishing the quest it should work pretty well for the double draw of minions to put on the board, but before finishing the quest it seems only useful if it lucks out and draws one of the quest-related elementals or maybe Shadowcaster.