Fun to play but honestly horrible to play against.
I feel that the deck takes away a fundamental part of the "skill" side of hearthstone which is managing resources well. I like to play the control game where you have to be very careful with how and when you use your removal. Your knowledge of the deck you are against and ability you can create situations to force them to do things they don't ideally want to do all come into play. Classic control warrior vs Handlock come to mind, especially from the warriors side. One significant mistake and you were toast against an accomplished handlock player.
Against modern galakrond rogue it doesn't matter because they can create too much value, it doesn't matter how hard you plan there is every chance you will face multiple activated Dragonqueen Alexstrasczas (even if the deck did not start as highlander), or Yseras, rush dragons or Onyxias which go tall and wide. All alongside the wave of 0 mana cards along with endless spells and shadowstepped Flikk which means they can respond to any board state and take the initiative. Even priest, with all their quality removal, can create some extra with renew but it is usually not enough.
The deck is not unbeatable, it is not like old control decks vs jade druid where you were pretty much waiting to lose as decks have more power these days but at least against jade druid you could put them under pressure or take advantage when they end up low on cards. Galakrond rogue never runs out of cards and can deal with all pressure and all while building up their own game too. It is a bit too much.
However I must admit, as someone who usually doesn't like playing the hyper powerful decks, I do love playing the deck. Hanar and flikk are so unique and I really enjoy using them and I can't resist a 0 mana Malygos. The issue is the lackeys really, the existance of draconic lackey really being an issue.
The biggest offenders in my opinion are obviously all the 0 cost cards in a tempo class and also the lackeys, specially the spell and dragon lackeys. I once had a rogue high roll a ysera, alex, and an Onyxia purely from lackys and he was supposed to be out of resources. Its just stupid how much lackey value they can get and it takes away from the joy of running them out of resources that they actually put in their deck. Unless blizzard nerfs galakrond rogue, its always going to be relevant and its going to get old quick
I'll craft hakkan if the deck seems broken enough to grind legend ez next season. Otherwise I will just grind whatever the best version of DH is. Honestly, i have only completed quests since day 4 or 5 of the new release. This expansion is straight garbage.
Mage and Shaman could go 2 on 1 in a Co-op Handicap match, and 0 Mana Dragonqueen + buddys followed by 0 Mana Kronx followed by 0 Mana Zephrys would still manhandle both of them breaking merely a sweat, while Hanar is rdy to build up teh Christmas Tree the turn after.
I'll craft hakkan if the deck seems broken enough to grind legend ez next season. Otherwise I will just grind whatever the best version of DH is. Honestly, i have only completed quests since day 4 or 5 of the new release. This expansion is straight garbage.
Hanar annoys me more than anything else. It's one thing if you have an infinite value machine that has to be killed quickly like EVIL Totem, that 2/3 Shaman Murloc that gets Murlocs off of Murlocs, or even the Priest thing that gets spells off of spells. It's annoying because they're very high priority targets on the cheap, but 2 or 3 health, while not always managable, you have options.
A 2 mana 1/5 is just scummy for what Hanar does. It's better stats than Evil Miscreant. And Evil Miscreant had to be nerfed. And nobody was even playing Evil Miscreant for it's body!
Galakrond rogue is a joke. Even the most controlling deck by the most controlling classes doesn't have much chance against this bullshit. The most boring and depressing deck to play against by far.
Totem Shaman actually was Tier 1 for a while but I'm pretty sure that fad died out after the meta settled after the second round of nerfs.
....It's better than nothing...
Totem Shaman was never really tier 1, it's just that people didn't know that allowing an on curve Totemic Reflection could possibly snowball the game reeeal quick and were playing badly against it (ie wasting removal on your 1-drop and allowing an unresponded EVIL Totem on turn 2). Now everybody has experienced that snowballing, and they're Frostbolting your f-ing Searing Totem if necessary lol. Very opening draw-dependent deck overall, feels like a combo deck (it kinda is). If you get out-tempoed and lose the board in the first couple of turns (which easily happens against classes like DH and Rogue) you can quickly concede on turn 4 or 5. Does very well against Priest tho, especially if you manage to keep your board outside of 2-dmg AOE range.
The deck will need new Totem tribe cards in the future to be really competitive, like the good ol' Totem Golem or Tuskarr Totemic (well not necessarily that strong lol, but stuff like that) and other totem supporting cards. Personally I'm looking forward to that.
As for Gala Rogue, I'll copy-paste a post I've written a couple of days ago with some additions
Rogue is not in a balanced state atm, mostly because they do too many things and too well at once. ie their boards can go both wide or tall; it's not like you can tech AOE or removal to deal with something specific, because one game they'll have a super wide and sticky lackey board that makes you feel you're playing against a Shaman; the next they could drop back to back a gigantic Edwin followed by a Winged Guardian generated by Pharaoh Cat (happened to me yesterday) and suddenly you're playing against what feels like a Druid. Every game is different, and it's too much to deal with. Today I've had one that I basically lost against a generated High Priest Amet that I couldn't deal with right away. Wasn't the first time either.
The secret package is problematic. They have early game tempo secret plays that makes you feel you're playing against Hunter (an early Ambush + Blackjack Stunner can be devastating especially to other tempo-based classes). They also have those late game Shadowjeweler Hanar turns that feel like good ol' Secret Pala Mysterious Challenger turns. Except they didn't have to fill their deck with otherwise BAD secrets to enable that combo.
In fact, secrets aren't even that big of a win condition for them. It's just a strong addition to an already strong deck: even if there were strong anti-secret tech in the meta, they wouldn't be suuuper relevant imho - it's not like, for example, those old times against Secret Pala, when anti-secret tech would completely destroy their main gameplan, like hitting a Flare on that Mysterious Challenger turn. Rogue doesn't care that much (not just theorizing here, I'm playing Hunter a lot and I'm putting a Flare in most of my builds, I do get good value too sometimes, but it's not like it's a game-winning tech).
They can fend off aggro (which were historically a weakness for Rogues), they can go the distance against slower decks, they can find and/or build annoying taunts to stop combos. They have way too many win conditions (early Big Edwin, early tempo secret plays, going wide with lackeys, going tall with generated cards, lategame Hanar, and of course Galakrond... not to mention DQ Alex for Highlander Rogue). On top of all this, the inherent RNG of lackeys feels incredibly bad to play against, both if you're playing aggro/tempo (hitting that perfect 2-dmg or taunt lackey at the perfect time for example) or control (hitting those big drops with the dragon lackey).
It's a bit too much packed in a single deck. With that said... I'd rather Rogue being the top dog than some other classes I hate (*cough*priest*cough*).
for those reasons you listed i love playing rogue. so much games feel different because of the unique styles (edwin<3, lackeyspam (i do admit spell & Dragon are problematic), gala, secrets, …) and cards you can generate.
Is that too strong? I think the mage and the shaman is a fucking big cheater class right now as well..
Fun to play but honestly horrible to play against.
I feel that the deck takes away a fundamental part of the "skill" side of hearthstone which is managing resources well. I like to play the control game where you have to be very careful with how and when you use your removal. Your knowledge of the deck you are against and ability you can create situations to force them to do things they don't ideally want to do all come into play. Classic control warrior vs Handlock come to mind, especially from the warriors side. One significant mistake and you were toast against an accomplished handlock player.
Against modern galakrond rogue it doesn't matter because they can create too much value, it doesn't matter how hard you plan there is every chance you will face multiple activated Dragonqueen Alexstrasczas (even if the deck did not start as highlander), or Yseras, rush dragons or Onyxias which go tall and wide. All alongside the wave of 0 mana cards along with endless spells and shadowstepped Flikk which means they can respond to any board state and take the initiative. Even priest, with all their quality removal, can create some extra with renew but it is usually not enough.
The deck is not unbeatable, it is not like old control decks vs jade druid where you were pretty much waiting to lose as decks have more power these days but at least against jade druid you could put them under pressure or take advantage when they end up low on cards. Galakrond rogue never runs out of cards and can deal with all pressure and all while building up their own game too. It is a bit too much.
However I must admit, as someone who usually doesn't like playing the hyper powerful decks, I do love playing the deck. Hanar and flikk are so unique and I really enjoy using them and I can't resist a 0 mana Malygos. The issue is the lackeys really, the existance of draconic lackey really being an issue.
It's the lackeys .. rest is fine.
And soon it will be hanar.
The biggest offenders in my opinion are obviously all the 0 cost cards in a tempo class and also the lackeys, specially the spell and dragon lackeys. I once had a rogue high roll a ysera, alex, and an Onyxia purely from lackys and he was supposed to be out of resources. Its just stupid how much lackey value they can get and it takes away from the joy of running them out of resources that they actually put in their deck. Unless blizzard nerfs galakrond rogue, its always going to be relevant and its going to get old quick
I'll craft hakkan if the deck seems broken enough to grind legend ez next season. Otherwise I will just grind whatever the best version of DH is. Honestly, i have only completed quests since day 4 or 5 of the new release. This expansion is straight garbage.
Mage and Shaman could go 2 on 1 in a Co-op Handicap match, and 0 Mana Dragonqueen + buddys followed by 0 Mana Kronx followed by 0 Mana Zephrys would still manhandle both of them breaking merely a sweat, while Hanar is rdy to build up teh Christmas Tree the turn after.
Yep, class is totally fine.
....almost.
My experience? If RNG fks them or you play counter cards, they rope or rage quit, because they are used to get easy wins.
Yes Hakkan...
Hanar annoys me more than anything else. It's one thing if you have an infinite value machine that has to be killed quickly like EVIL Totem, that 2/3 Shaman Murloc that gets Murlocs off of Murlocs, or even the Priest thing that gets spells off of spells. It's annoying because they're very high priority targets on the cheap, but 2 or 3 health, while not always managable, you have options.
A 2 mana 1/5 is just scummy for what Hanar does. It's better stats than Evil Miscreant. And Evil Miscreant had to be nerfed. And nobody was even playing Evil Miscreant for it's body!
Wait wait wait. Did you really just say anything negative about the state of shaman other than it being near unplayable?
Totem Shaman actually was Tier 1 for a while but I'm pretty sure that fad died out after the meta settled after the second round of nerfs.
....It's better than nothing...
Galakrond rogue is a joke. Even the most controlling deck by the most controlling classes doesn't have much chance against this bullshit. The most boring and depressing deck to play against by far.
Totem Shaman was never really tier 1, it's just that people didn't know that allowing an on curve Totemic Reflection could possibly snowball the game reeeal quick and were playing badly against it (ie wasting removal on your 1-drop and allowing an unresponded EVIL Totem on turn 2). Now everybody has experienced that snowballing, and they're Frostbolting your f-ing Searing Totem if necessary lol. Very opening draw-dependent deck overall, feels like a combo deck (it kinda is). If you get out-tempoed and lose the board in the first couple of turns (which easily happens against classes like DH and Rogue) you can quickly concede on turn 4 or 5. Does very well against Priest tho, especially if you manage to keep your board outside of 2-dmg AOE range.
The deck will need new Totem tribe cards in the future to be really competitive, like the good ol' Totem Golem or Tuskarr Totemic (well not necessarily that strong lol, but stuff like that) and other totem supporting cards. Personally I'm looking forward to that.
Galakrond Rogue? I call it Casino Rogue.
As for Gala Rogue, I'll copy-paste a post I've written a couple of days ago with some additions
Rogue is not in a balanced state atm, mostly because they do too many things and too well at once. ie their boards can go both wide or tall; it's not like you can tech AOE or removal to deal with something specific, because one game they'll have a super wide and sticky lackey board that makes you feel you're playing against a Shaman; the next they could drop back to back a gigantic Edwin followed by a Winged Guardian generated by Pharaoh Cat (happened to me yesterday) and suddenly you're playing against what feels like a Druid. Every game is different, and it's too much to deal with. Today I've had one that I basically lost against a generated High Priest Amet that I couldn't deal with right away. Wasn't the first time either.
The secret package is problematic. They have early game tempo secret plays that makes you feel you're playing against Hunter (an early Ambush + Blackjack Stunner can be devastating especially to other tempo-based classes). They also have those late game Shadowjeweler Hanar turns that feel like good ol' Secret Pala Mysterious Challenger turns. Except they didn't have to fill their deck with otherwise BAD secrets to enable that combo.
In fact, secrets aren't even that big of a win condition for them. It's just a strong addition to an already strong deck: even if there were strong anti-secret tech in the meta, they wouldn't be suuuper relevant imho - it's not like, for example, those old times against Secret Pala, when anti-secret tech would completely destroy their main gameplan, like hitting a Flare on that Mysterious Challenger turn. Rogue doesn't care that much (not just theorizing here, I'm playing Hunter a lot and I'm putting a Flare in most of my builds, I do get good value too sometimes, but it's not like it's a game-winning tech).
They can fend off aggro (which were historically a weakness for Rogues), they can go the distance against slower decks, they can find and/or build annoying taunts to stop combos. They have way too many win conditions (early Big Edwin, early tempo secret plays, going wide with lackeys, going tall with generated cards, lategame Hanar, and of course Galakrond... not to mention DQ Alex for Highlander Rogue). On top of all this, the inherent RNG of lackeys feels incredibly bad to play against, both if you're playing aggro/tempo (hitting that perfect 2-dmg or taunt lackey at the perfect time for example) or control (hitting those big drops with the dragon lackey).
It's a bit too much packed in a single deck. With that said... I'd rather Rogue being the top dog than some other classes I hate (*cough*priest*cough*).
Its just a good deck.
its a good deck, but hard to play. sometimes it requires a lot of APM
for those reasons you listed i love playing rogue. so much games feel different because of the unique styles (edwin<3, lackeyspam (i do admit spell & Dragon are problematic), gala, secrets, …) and cards you can generate.
You talking about the treasure card from Heistbaron Togwaggle giving 3 0 cost cards or the up to 4 0 cost cards off Galakrond, the Nightmare? Hard to tell /s
Lets not forget the Blackjack Stunner that will nullify your 9 or 10 cost cards for 1 mana if you control a secret.