Hearthstone will be dead in 12 months if they allow lackeys to continue into another full standard rotation. They need Baku/Genn treatment. An early retirement. I think the idea behind them is fine but its starting to get old. The RNG they provided makes the game fun and also extremely frustrating. Its the extremely frustrating part that makes people quit. People are leaving HS in droves (or just sticking with Battlegrounds) and tbh Lackeys and "Roguestone" RNG Clown fiasco is the main reason.
Edit. Galakrond decks (all besideds Priest) will be a cancer moving forward. The power creep is way too high and Team 5 are in for a world of hurt.
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For those who play priest as main, you know dark times.
And it's gotten a bit dimmer today as Zetalot, a player who has provided deck ideas and winrates for priests in the darkest of hours, takes off from playing Hearthstone for an indefinite amount of time.
Thanks for all the great priest decks over the years.
BTW, love he points out lackeys as something that needs to be addressed. I've been thinking that the past weekend vs. warlock, rogue and aggro warrior decks, and shaman for months.
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From who I follow:
Brian Kibler explains the technical stuff well, and for the most part, skews on the control side of things. Probably the best all-around reviewer, and damn seductive at playing decks that have horrible win rates but tempt you to waste dust on them. He does have a blind eye to the scourges of ladder though (meta aggro generally) unless it hits him in the face -- Pirate Warrior, Un'Goro Quest Rogue. The ivory tower guy of Hearthstone, we are all dirty common peasants to his glorious epic decks.
Regis Killbin is a good quick review source, but he doesn't like long games or sees cards that do well in that -- he thought Frost Lich Jaina from Knights of the Frozen Throne would be ineffective.
Hearthstone's Trump is ... comic relief. Also, he hates priest, so f--k him.
Kripp has arena and meme deck cred. I've seen him do well with aggro and control in constructed; he just gets bored of standard ladder quickly is what I read. Bomb Warrior was his latest creation for constructed, so take that as you will. As for predictions ... he'll go off the deep end for some, but is pretty close to Kibler on average.
Dekkster is good for making or promoting offbeat decks and honestly tells you whether it will succeed vs. the (aggro) meta or not, but he's yet to show any predicting chops. I believe this is the first expansion he's reviewed cards.
Thijs and J4ckieChan don't review, but they do come out with fun and outside the meta decks a week or two after the dust settles.
I think we're going to miss Disguised Toast, even though he was burnt out two or three expansions ago. Not a big fan, but when he busted out a meme deck or tried to get an OTK card or theory to work, it was worth the watch.
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Zilliax is the universal card of all decks.
Aggro, as usual, is rampant. Murlocs are back for shaman, will be back for paladin next month, and zoo warlock and treant druid are things.
Complex OTK is rare in standard.
Hunter is overplayed (about 25% of matches in standard, and wild has a lot of them too). And it has three decks to choose from -- mechs, secrets, beasts, and a hero card that works like a better Shudderwock. And it doesn't look like Blizzard is aiming the nerf gun at Hunter any time soon, unless it has to change the OP cards its getting in the next expansion.
Bomb Warrior is a thing, Control Warrior is back, but it's not a solid pick versus mage or hunter.
Everyone looks at Murloc Shaman or the Overload Aggro deck, but Control Shaman, despite being expensive as hell, is one of the few viable picks for players that like long games. It's still lacking a final punch to power it by warrior (wild, another story -- Quest Mage is a horrible match-up though).
Rogue is the cockroach deck, surviving after nerfs, but it did lose an important survival tool.
Mage has 1 1/2 decks in wild (Quest with cyclone, with or without Flamewaker) and 1 1/2 decks in standard (conjurer's calling mage with or without cyclone). But they are among the top decks, with Quest Mage becoming the new big bad deck of wild.
Priest only exists in wild (generally Big Priest and the occasional dragon deck or OTK Velen+Malygos) and for the most part can only win on Inner Fire or Chef Nomi in standard. As of July 22, Priest players have nothing to look forward to yet in the next expansion (so far, a battlecry rez minion that screws up the pool later and has 1 health, and a massively useful removal that comes way too late and expensive at turn 9+).
Warlock has zoo in standard and some expensive Kibler video-inspired portal shenanigans, but they're rarely seen outside wild either.
Paladin has impressive potential decks (a snowball mech or secrets deck, one of the few OTKs that work) but never gets the win rate math.
Druid doesn't have OTK anymore. Actually, aside from treant-crapping druids and the rare Lucentbark/taunt deck, there aren't many druids anymore in standard.
Two new legendary cards were made for classic set btw, Brightwing and High Inquisitor Whitemane. Despite crap health, Brightwing has potential in dragon or battlecry decks. The High Inquisitor has yet to find a spot, despite an impressive battlecry and body (snert).
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Technically, this isn't the first buff from Blizzard.
Remember when Deathstalker Rexxar didn't have access to beasts from Kobolds & Catacombs or The Witchwood? People complained about that and Blizzard caved in and changed it, after initially saying they wouldn't.
We ended up with OP zombeasts. Before the change, Deathstalker Rexxar was pretty mediocre. After the change came the zombeasts with multi-hit, lifesteal, poison ...
Thus began the ongoing year of Hunterstone and Rexxar probably being the No. 1 deathknight people no longer wanted to see. So be careful what you wish for.
/I f--king hate Hunter pre-nerf Yogg or Shudderwock, er, Zul'jin, too
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Old Casual: People experimenting with decks.
Casual for the past year-plus: Gold farmers running aggro and/or meta decks.
Wild Casual: (spinning noise ... waiting for matchup ... waiting for matchup ... waiting for matchup ...)
/practice with my gold priest on casual, but that's because standard priest is still looking for its unicorn
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So far ... this is the best single-player content.
More replay than Witchwood or Kobolds IMO, and the WTF has been few and far between compared to some bosses (looks at Rastakhan) but I need to see if it's possible to win with more than one class (it's not the Adventures of Rakanishu, is it? He seems far better than the hunter and shaman).
Midway through a priest run with the endless deck (play a card, get 2 1-mana copies inserted into the deck), draw 2 per hand, quest AND C'thun mixed in, and C'thun and the quest start in my opening mulligan. I either win with C'thun or fatigue, but I have to worry about milling myself or early aggro.
Had a 28-point C'thun FTW so far, but the little room for minions has made for interesting decisions. Barely beat the rogue boss that sends out 3 random backstabs to minions.
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Why yes, it obviously has the potential to bring forth/back a Death Knight as it did in Warcraft 3 -- thus the "Wild" and "legendary Warlock card" specifics. And a Dreadlord, too (Mal'Ganis).
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If more daily quests were "single player focused" -- I can play 30 druid cards in adventure, get my gold -- hell yeah, I would consider it rather than just running a joke deck in casual to get six combos or whatever out of the way.
I will sample the adventure and decide later, for now.
/did win with a joke combo deck yesterday though; mage ragequit when I killed his/her early mountain giants and a sea giant before he could cast Conjurer's Twinspell BS. So that was nice.
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Decks for smorc/aggro vermin, brought to you by the guy who says he hates smorc/aggro vermin.
Guess Kripp's bomb warrior got too old for the meta. Also surprised he hasn't gone "Control Warrior is back, boys!" as he hated jades and other cards that kept the long game/fatigue factor strategy off the ladder.
/remember when Kripp did complex combo/OTK decks on the ladder and people could have fun with those?
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Really crappy art on top.
Makes you think the little mousey guy is the one to root for over big dark uniform human knight if you don't know the lore.
BTW, initially I had no interest in adventures, especially since Boomsday and Rastakhan's single-player content sucked, but if I'm facing months of pre-nerf Yogg/Shudderwock-like Zul'jin hunter, giant spam mages and aggro garbage druids and murlocs, where the hell do I sign up?