Abyssal Warlock is pretty much dead deck with very little competitive viability above bronze-gold ranks. This is mainly because it's very slow and has no tools to hold on long enough to kill the opponent with curses (it takes too much time). Pretty much every deck needs offensive and defensive to survive, and the rule of thumb is that the more you have one, the less you need the other. In other words, the more pressure you put on your opponent, the less time they have to counterattack and the less you have to defend yourself, which is why some decks can perform quite well without any defense at all, such as Face Hunter or Aggro Demon Hunter. But to rely only on defense, you need to reach Control Warrior level of removal and amor stacking, which is impossible for Warlock. That's why I believe he simply needs more pressure.
Right now, his curve usually looks something like this:
My point is, curses don't do enough until level 3-4 and opponent can just ignore them, pushing for tempo and face damage until it's too late for Warlock to come back. The solution? This:
Turn 1: Cursed Flame. Opponent doesn't even have mana to play it away, so he has to take full damage (1 + 1). He may drop a minion to develop the board or skip.
Turn 2: Cursed Flame again. This time opponent has mana to remove the curse, but that would skip his entire turn 2. Most likely, he would rather take full damage (2 + 2) and play some minion or spell.
Turn 3: Sira'kess Cultist. This time it's 3/4 with battlecry: deal 3 + 3 damage to your opponent! He's already taken 9 damage from you, so he can't just ignore that curse anymore. But then he has only 1 mana left to deal with your 3/4, not to mention pushing any tempo or damage.
Obviously, at this point, Warlock's pressure would stop / slow down for a few turns, but it would be already closer to turn 6 where he has his best control tools such as Entitled Customer, Dreadlich Tamsin or Abyssal Wave.
I think that the deck's main problem at the moment is the polarized meta and the fact that warlock's hate cards are not flexible.
You can run hand disruption to beat control warrior, but your aggro matchup will be horrible, or you can forego the hand disruption to beat aggro, but concede every warrior game. That's not a good spot to be in.
Honestly, I don't think Warlock has enough tools to consistently beat aggro these days, even if you tried to design your deck with this single purpose in mind. With School Spirits gone, he lacks proper AoE removal before 6 mana, as well as hard removal to deal with big minions or divine shields (Siphon Soul and Twisting Nether are way too slow).
The problem isn’t with the curses, spells or aoe, they are all serviceable. The problem is that there aren’t any good minions that are a threat outside of being bran/Zola/Tammy/azshara combo pieces. Warlock took a nosedive when it lost free 8/8’s and resurrection spells. Ulthok is rotting garbage, a missed opportunity to give warlock something useful instead of Milhouse 2.0.
The problem is that there aren’t any good minions that are a threat outside of being bran/Zola/Tammy/azshara combo pieces.
Somewhat true, but it comes down to what I said before, the pressure that can be put by minions but also spells or weapons. Basically the same thing, but from different sources.
The problem is that there aren’t any good minions that are a threat outside of being bran/Zola/Tammy/azshara combo pieces.
Somewhat true, but it comes down to what I said before, the pressure that can be put by minions but also spells or weapons. Basically the same thing, but from different sources.
There isn't anything that warlock has that is a remove immediately threat. Closest is gigafin, and it's not great against anything with a way to deal 4 damage. I don't think getting the curse pressure earlier will do anything for this deck. What it needs is a way to actually put a threat on the board that becomes a supplement to the curses by hitting the opponent in the face while also taking some of the heat off of you. Warlock just has trash for minions, the biggest threat minion in curse decks at the moment is either Zaqul, Azshara or School Teacher and they just too expensive for what they are. The last control warlock deck had two free 8/8s, a one cost 8/6, two one cost 6/6 taunts, two 3/3 deal six with lifesteals, battlemaster and rez spells. That's 8 or 9 minions that got replaced with Brann, Zola, Azshara and sirakess, otherwise the rest of the package is still control.
This deck needs to be nerfed to oblivion, not buffed! It is completely uninteractive, the damage you get is almost infinite and unavoidable. That is really bad deck design. The only good thing against it is hyper agro. Control needs to sit with the full hand and burn their cards. Terrible game experience. Horrible design!
I don't think this deck really needs a turn 1 play. If anything it wants to pass and just hero power for a couple of turns to get a big hand so that Goldshire Gnolls can come down early and cheap as well as to have a strong Entitled Customer later.
Curse Warlock is one of the most foolish archetypes for Hearthstone, with other thngs like Naval Mine Rogue being contenders for their legendary unstoppability.
You should not be able to play a 2 mana ignite that has no opportunity for counterplay.
They should fix curses by also making them damage the Warlock, making them only playable with the Demon Seed quest.
No idea why people wanna make curse warlock good deck. It should be tier3 meme deck forever. Playing against unavoidable dmg thats might also burn your topdeck has to be one of the most un-fun thing to play against ever.
No idea why people wanna make curse warlock good deck. It should be tier3 meme deck forever. Playing against unavoidable dmg thats might also burn your topdeck has to be one of the most un-fun thing to play against ever.
This. Better give us some tools to make a Fel/Zoo archetype work. Warlock lacks good agressive minions that don't pressure you to put tons of Murlocs in your deck. And every curse fetishist could maybe still run some of those as a finishing tool.
No idea why people wanna make curse warlock good deck. It should be tier3 meme deck forever. Playing against unavoidable dmg thats might also burn your topdeck has to be one of the most un-fun thing to play against ever.
You must be joking. Almost every good deck is faster and more unavoidable than Curselock - I'd like to remind you that we live in OTK meta (mostly based on Mr Smite). Is it more fun to lose to Smite in Paladin, Warrior or Rogue? Or is it more fun to die from copied Galvangar? Or is it more fun to die from Sword of One Thousand Truths? Maybe you prefer to be OTKed by Druid or Demon Hunter? Or Bomb Rogue?
Warlock is obviously too slow for this meta, and healing is too weak with the amount of OTK, but still must have as there are few other than OTK decks.
This is patron warrior all over again. Hated deck but really low win rate because the skill ceiling is so high.
I'm pretty sure this supports my OP.
It's a good deck. Just agro hand dumping players have no clue how to play it well.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it is in no way comparable to PW.
VS has stats by rank, you can check top legend and you'll find out that even in the most capable hands the deck is just weak (and nowhere close to the complexity of PW)
Abyssal Warlock is pretty much dead deck with very little competitive viability above bronze-gold ranks. This is mainly because it's very slow and has no tools to hold on long enough to kill the opponent with curses (it takes too much time). Pretty much every deck needs offensive and defensive to survive, and the rule of thumb is that the more you have one, the less you need the other. In other words, the more pressure you put on your opponent, the less time they have to counterattack and the less you have to defend yourself, which is why some decks can perform quite well without any defense at all, such as Face Hunter or Aggro Demon Hunter. But to rely only on defense, you need to reach Control Warrior level of removal and amor stacking, which is impossible for Warlock. That's why I believe he simply needs more pressure.
Right now, his curve usually looks something like this:
My point is, curses don't do enough until level 3-4 and opponent can just ignore them, pushing for tempo and face damage until it's too late for Warlock to come back. The solution? This:
It's from fire school so can't be copied by Tamsin Roame, but still works with Multicaster and can be discovered by School Teacher.
Now, imagine the dream curve with this card:
Obviously, at this point, Warlock's pressure would stop / slow down for a few turns, but it would be already closer to turn 6 where he has his best control tools such as Entitled Customer, Dreadlich Tamsin or Abyssal Wave.
What do you think?
honestly i really like the suggestion, doesn't seem game breakingly strong,
but might be pretty annoying on the receiving end
Like the suggestion. The deck isn't weak and there's a few variants of it that handle agro or control ish decks better.
It's a harder deck to piloted than most people think that doesn't make it bad.
I disagree it's DOA and needs support in the current meta. I'm playing high diamond atm and see it regularly.
Unfortunately, data says otherwise.
https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-232/
I think that the deck's main problem at the moment is the polarized meta and the fact that warlock's hate cards are not flexible.
You can run hand disruption to beat control warrior, but your aggro matchup will be horrible, or you can forego the hand disruption to beat aggro, but concede every warrior game. That's not a good spot to be in.
Honestly, I don't think Warlock has enough tools to consistently beat aggro these days, even if you tried to design your deck with this single purpose in mind. With School Spirits gone, he lacks proper AoE removal before 6 mana, as well as hard removal to deal with big minions or divine shields (Siphon Soul and Twisting Nether are way too slow).
The problem isn’t with the curses, spells or aoe, they are all serviceable. The problem is that there aren’t any good minions that are a threat outside of being bran/Zola/Tammy/azshara combo pieces. Warlock took a nosedive when it lost free 8/8’s and resurrection spells. Ulthok is rotting garbage, a missed opportunity to give warlock something useful instead of Milhouse 2.0.
Somewhat true, but it comes down to what I said before, the pressure that can be put by minions but also spells or weapons. Basically the same thing, but from different sources.
There isn't anything that warlock has that is a remove immediately threat. Closest is gigafin, and it's not great against anything with a way to deal 4 damage. I don't think getting the curse pressure earlier will do anything for this deck. What it needs is a way to actually put a threat on the board that becomes a supplement to the curses by hitting the opponent in the face while also taking some of the heat off of you. Warlock just has trash for minions, the biggest threat minion in curse decks at the moment is either Zaqul, Azshara or School Teacher and they just too expensive for what they are. The last control warlock deck had two free 8/8s, a one cost 8/6, two one cost 6/6 taunts, two 3/3 deal six with lifesteals, battlemaster and rez spells. That's 8 or 9 minions that got replaced with Brann, Zola, Azshara and sirakess, otherwise the rest of the package is still control.
This deck needs to be nerfed to oblivion, not buffed! It is completely uninteractive, the damage you get is almost infinite and unavoidable. That is really bad deck design. The only good thing against it is hyper agro. Control needs to sit with the full hand and burn their cards. Terrible game experience. Horrible design!
This deck does not need a buff.
My curse warlock actually handles aggro quite nicely it does well vs murlocs and whatnot it’s just a more complex deck than people make it out to be
I don't think this deck really needs a turn 1 play. If anything it wants to pass and just hero power for a couple of turns to get a big hand so that Goldshire Gnolls can come down early and cheap as well as to have a strong Entitled Customer later.
Curse Warlock is one of the most foolish archetypes for Hearthstone, with other thngs like Naval Mine Rogue being contenders for their legendary unstoppability.
You should not be able to play a 2 mana ignite that has no opportunity for counterplay.
They should fix curses by also making them damage the Warlock, making them only playable with the Demon Seed quest.
No idea why people wanna make curse warlock good deck. It should be tier3 meme deck forever. Playing against unavoidable dmg thats might also burn your topdeck has to be one of the most un-fun thing to play against ever.
This. Better give us some tools to make a Fel/Zoo archetype work. Warlock lacks good agressive minions that don't pressure you to put tons of Murlocs in your deck. And every curse fetishist could maybe still run some of those as a finishing tool.
Ceterum censeo classum magi esse delendam.
You must be joking. Almost every good deck is faster and more unavoidable than Curselock - I'd like to remind you that we live in OTK meta (mostly based on Mr Smite). Is it more fun to lose to Smite in Paladin, Warrior or Rogue? Or is it more fun to die from copied Galvangar? Or is it more fun to die from Sword of One Thousand Truths? Maybe you prefer to be OTKed by Druid or Demon Hunter? Or Bomb Rogue?
Warlock is obviously too slow for this meta, and healing is too weak with the amount of OTK, but still must have as there are few other than OTK decks.
This is patron warrior all over again. Hated deck but really low win rate because the skill ceiling is so high.
I'm pretty sure this supports my OP.
It's a good deck. Just agro hand dumping players have no clue how to play it well.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it is in no way comparable to PW.
VS has stats by rank, you can check top legend and you'll find out that even in the most capable hands the deck is just weak (and nowhere close to the complexity of PW)
It's not a deck that should be good. The better it gets, the more it will force everyone else to play agro or very quick combo decks.