So I finally decided to toss away my pride and play a very renowned list instead of my own peculiar experiments in order to bridge the damn Legend gap after 1 and a half years of playing this game. I never liked druid, but it seemed to have alot of upset potential and no extremely bad matchups. Since the key to getting legend is playing deck with a high winrate I figured that would be my best bet - so I turned to combo druid.
I started out with double combo, but soon I realised that my inexperience with the class caused too much discomfort playing that style of deck - not knowing when it's ok to use bits of your combo or when to use removal didn't bode well, and I didn't advance much. So I dropped 1 full combo and added tech cards that would help me in some matchups - a mind control tech for tempo mage and zoo and harrison for patron warrior. After 20ish games I was still stuck at a 50% winrate so I was thinking a bit.
I felt that alot of the matches that I lost was due to not drawing my tech cards at key times, so I pulled a rather weird substitution - I removed both wild growths to add in a 2nd big game hunter and a kezan mystic. The result was immediate - I ran from rank 11 to rank 5 without a single loss, you can do the math, but I believe those were +/-16 wins in a row.
So here are my whole thoughts on the matter - is Wild Growth overhyped and an auto-include in most druids because it has been wildly accepted that way and because of the enourmous advantage it can grant you early in the game? The main reason I ditched the card was because of the rare times it appears in your opening hand aswell, as even when it does, sometimes it's still not enough to give you a substantial lead. The biggest change I noticed was consistency while playing the deck.
Note, that I do not run ragnaros or cenarius as some combo druids do, where I believe, if you are running a slightly later curve, the card gains in value. For me, just having innervates and using them effectively was good enough.
So here is my question to all of you - have you tried the 'no wild growth' route? And your thoughts on the card in combo druid specifically.
So I guess I'm not the only one who thought about this. Wild Growth is a good card to draw in very slow matchups, but against this meta, it's almost useless.
My distribution of classes played through ~200 games this season:
-40 Warriors, most of which is probably Grim Patron
-40 Mages, most which are Tempo Mages with secrets
-40 Hunters, most of which are midrange/hybrid hunters.
I've been finding that swamp ooze is a good add in because it allows you to play more confidently against mirror entity, allows you to put in a 2 drop against zoo, and the obvious weapon removal.
That's how I felt in a nutshell, in the games where I got my wild growth on turns 4-6, when it's arguably the most worthless, because you don't see it cycling and playing it impedes you playing on curve, I was just thinking - couldn't this have been some kindof tech card or anything that's not worthless.
I mean, I see the appeal - playing a little bit of ahead of the curve makes it increasingly difficult for other classes to deal with your stuff efficiently and that really helps sneaking in those bits of damage to finish your opponent off with combo, there's really only the question - do you have to do it?
And not running wild growths in the mirror is really punishing at times, I've found out though.
It's true that not having WG in mirror matches can be punishing, but I think the chances of someone drawing WG during their turn 1-2 is something like 30% if my math is right.
Wild Growth is something I've had a bit of Love/Hate relationship with. I've run it before, but currently I'm having a lot more success with only the innervates in an Aggro-ish Mech deck. Really, It's a personal choice, but I agree with you that it is a bit overhyped, and certainly not an auto include like some other class cards, unless you really know what you're doing.
In this specific meta I agree with you for sure. Everything is tempo right now, and they can punish you hard for the use of Wild Growth. I'd rather run even Anodized Robo Cub than Wild Growth right now. Plus, Thaurissan makes it easier to play early combo so you don't have to rely as heavily on ramping.
So I finally decided to toss away my pride and play a very renowned list instead of my own peculiar experiments in order to bridge the damn Legend gap after 1 and a half years of playing this game. I never liked druid, but it seemed to have alot of upset potential and no extremely bad matchups. Since the key to getting legend is playing deck with a high winrate I figured that would be my best bet - so I turned to combo druid.
I started out with double combo, but soon I realised that my inexperience with the class caused too much discomfort playing that style of deck - not knowing when it's ok to use bits of your combo or when to use removal didn't bode well, and I didn't advance much. So I dropped 1 full combo and added tech cards that would help me in some matchups - a mind control tech for tempo mage and zoo and harrison for patron warrior. After 20ish games I was still stuck at a 50% winrate so I was thinking a bit.
I felt that alot of the matches that I lost was due to not drawing my tech cards at key times, so I pulled a rather weird substitution - I removed both wild growths to add in a 2nd big game hunter and a kezan mystic. The result was immediate - I ran from rank 11 to rank 5 without a single loss, you can do the math, but I believe those were +/-16 wins in a row.
So here are my whole thoughts on the matter - is Wild Growth overhyped and an auto-include in most druids because it has been wildly accepted that way and because of the enourmous advantage it can grant you early in the game? The main reason I ditched the card was because of the rare times it appears in your opening hand aswell, as even when it does, sometimes it's still not enough to give you a substantial lead. The biggest change I noticed was consistency while playing the deck.
Note, that I do not run ragnaros or cenarius as some combo druids do, where I believe, if you are running a slightly later curve, the card gains in value. For me, just having innervates and using them effectively was good enough.
So here is my question to all of you - have you tried the 'no wild growth' route? And your thoughts on the card in combo druid specifically.
So I guess I'm not the only one who thought about this. Wild Growth is a good card to draw in very slow matchups, but against this meta, it's almost useless.
My distribution of classes played through ~200 games this season:
-40 Warriors, most of which is probably Grim Patron
-40 Mages, most which are Tempo Mages with secrets
-40 Hunters, most of which are midrange/hybrid hunters.
-40 Warlocks, most of which are Zoo.
-15 Druids, Paladins
-Less than 5 of each: Priest, Rogue, Shaman
What I did for my deck was cut 1 of the Wild Growths, although I feel like cutting two is good too. Added in Swamp Ooze , Harrison Jones , Kezan Mystic, added in a second Big Game Hunter, and finally I swapped my remaining Shade of Naxxramus for Druid of the Flame
I've been finding that swamp ooze is a good add in because it allows you to play more confidently against mirror entity, allows you to put in a 2 drop against zoo, and the obvious weapon removal.
That's how I felt in a nutshell, in the games where I got my wild growth on turns 4-6, when it's arguably the most worthless, because you don't see it cycling and playing it impedes you playing on curve, I was just thinking - couldn't this have been some kindof tech card or anything that's not worthless.
I mean, I see the appeal - playing a little bit of ahead of the curve makes it increasingly difficult for other classes to deal with your stuff efficiently and that really helps sneaking in those bits of damage to finish your opponent off with combo, there's really only the question - do you have to do it?
And not running wild growths in the mirror is really punishing at times, I've found out though.
It's true that not having WG in mirror matches can be punishing, but I think the chances of someone drawing WG during their turn 1-2 is something like 30% if my math is right.
Wild Growth is something I've had a bit of Love/Hate relationship with. I've run it before, but currently I'm having a lot more success with only the innervates in an Aggro-ish Mech deck. Really, It's a personal choice, but I agree with you that it is a bit overhyped, and certainly not an auto include like some other class cards, unless you really know what you're doing.
In this specific meta I agree with you for sure. Everything is tempo right now, and they can punish you hard for the use of Wild Growth. I'd rather run even Anodized Robo Cub than Wild Growth right now. Plus, Thaurissan makes it easier to play early combo so you don't have to rely as heavily on ramping.
Have a great deck that's really, really cheap? Help the new players out