In the mid-game they seem a lot like Pirates in that they struggle to grow consistently but can keep better up late game and they can snowball with those self-replacing cards like Tavern Tempest and Sellemental. Refreshing Anomaly also plays a role here.
It'll resolve all around having an early Majordomo, and Lil Rag, which is the central key-card I think
Nomi could be busted, if it stacks. Not sure about that.
Garr seems super weak for a tavern 5 I need a power spike 6 drop. He needs a turn or two to grow to be useful.
I don't like Whirwind Tempest. There are barely any Windfury minions as of yet... so super wasteful.
Nota elemental, but I'm super convinced they put Deadly Spore into the minion pool as neutral to counter Pogos and the like.
They suffer same issue as Pirates, they are only a bunch of raw stats and have no keyword to snowball off of. So you're gonna need to make some kind of mix build for late game unless you want your entire board to suicide into two poison/ds Amalgadons.
Crackling Cyclone is the only divine shield/windfury they have, making it golden for Mega-Windfury is questionable since it doesn't double up divine shield it most likely will die after 2 attacks anyway.
Whirlwind Tempest is useless as again, minions aren't likely to survive more than 2 attacks.
Wildfire Elemental scales really bad compared to normal cleave, especially considering that attack into divine shield whiffs entire ability.
Gentle Djinni is the only deathrattle summon of entire archetype but elementals have no combat effects (just raw stats) so it's rather bad combat wise
I'm sure it'll probably be bad, but it'll be interesting to see if Molten Rock and Party Elemental can create a viable low-tier build. Sellemental and Refreshing Anomaly both keep things moving at low tier, and if I ever get Aranna in an elementals game, I'm trying it.
The tribe overall seems somewhat interesting, but mostly for gold managing purposes. Aside from that, I wouldn't want to seriously go for an Elemental build. Payoff cards like Majordomo, Garr and Nomi feel like they were designed for a different Battlegrounds than the one we are playing, where Poison, Divine Shield, Cleave, or Jandice don't exist, and where nobody dies before turn 10.
Majordomo not only forces you into buying only Elementals, you also rarely ever want to buff your left-most minion, even if it's a Cleave.
Garr is, at the very best, like an Annihilan Battlemaster, just a dude with lots of health that might occasionally receive some attack buffs. But unlike Battlemaster, it's a level 6 card, it forces you into running AND buying only Elementals, AND it STILL takes 2-3 turns to be of decent size, not to mention that most Elementals don't have abilities that make them worth keeping to begin with. All that for a single minion that most likely dies to a poisonous Murloc, Maexxna or the new Spore card. Or a Pogo that has 100 attack in addition to 100 health. Who in their right mind would pick Elementals and Garr over Dragons and Kalecgos?! And that's before we count in Nadina.
And Nomi is arguably even worse. Super slow and super inconsistent, just to get potential stats that other builds can accumulate on the board. And again, a lot of the Elementals are just not that good, even if they have massive stats. How are you supposed to survive if you seriously want to play Nomi? You have to buy all Elementals you see, and if you want to make use of the effect, you need to sell them again and find even more. At best, you can play 3-4 Elementals every turn, and it would still take like 5 really good turns for Nomi to give you endgame-level stats that you still need to aquire first. What's on your board in the meantime? You can only hope that you can perfectly replace your entire board every other turn.
You need good rolls with Murlocs too, but 2-3 good turns with Brann is usually enough to get them going, and you can keep the Murlocs you want and search for triples and get Poison on them. If you don't find Elementals frequent enough for more turns than you realistically have, your entire strategy collapses.
The best Elemental seems to be Lil'Rag, just because it doesn't force you into the tribe with a sledgehammer entirely, but aside from Tavern Tempest and maybe Stasis Elemental, you wouldn't even want to buy most of them in a Menagerie build.
Also, I wonder what takes longer: Jandice to get nerfed or Rakanishu to get buffed.
Elementals seems a little better than pirates. So, not so good. In the late game, they seems mediocre. The new heros instead seems good. Rag is an easy pic, +8/+8 every turn is so good. It will be probably nerfed in the conditions to reach Sulfuras.
2nd match. Elementals fall of HAAAAAAAAARD if you don't find Lil Rag. Jesus.
Also, lol +5 rating for 4th place. That a joke? I got 299 for first.
I got a 299, 300, and 5 on my 4th places; one was a draw for 5th.
//
Anyhow, I'm overall mixed on Elementals. Lil Rag is great, Executus didn't impress me, but it wasn't a pure Ele build (early Micromachine triple into golden Goldgrubber on Reno, with a lead-off Deflect-o-Bot to take the buffs). Having a spattering of Divine Shield and Windfury seems useful, but the endgame boards I've seen looked good but not insurmountable compared to boards of Beasts or Dragons or Murlocs of similar quality levels.
If they come in better than Pirates, Mechs, or Demons is pretty good first day out. Folks might figure out how to play them or play against them better, so we'll see.
- Balance changes are 100% incoming on multiple heroes and cards. - Poison is so important - The metagame is fast AF. This has some interesting tangential effects.
Rakinushu Turn 3 also feels pretty good. Can't always get a token start to buy two minions without selling something, so simply buying one and getting +2/+2 is pretty reasonable. I did it with a Red Whelp and had some really pleasant and easy first rounds, but I stink at transitioning out of that, so squandered it.
yep, elementals are more broken IMO than Murlocs with Adapt were, full board of maximum stats, not just one or two minions with mega stats, all board is like 50+hp and 30+ attack... it is stupid in case of big demons you had to pay your health here you just play cards and they have synergies... power creep is hitting hard Battlegrounds, also Jandice seems to be more balanced now, when there are more minion pool shifts, but when she hits Pogo its easy top 4, Ragnaros is pure BS... too much buffs, they nerfed Enforcer to the ground just so they could release even more oppresive stat gain... I thought that Al Akir will be OP, he´s not bad, neither OP, over all balance changes are needed
Have pogos been removed? I just went a whole game with Jandice on tier 2 and didn't see a single pogo in the many tevern refreshes. I didn't even buy minions the last few rounds, just refreshing out of pure spite. Not one showed up.
New patch coming adding Elemental tribe and 4 new heros. Thoughts?
https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/23523062
In the mid-game they seem a lot like Pirates in that they struggle to grow consistently but can keep better up late game and they can snowball with those self-replacing cards like Tavern Tempest and Sellemental. Refreshing Anomaly also plays a role here.
It'll resolve all around having an early Majordomo, and Lil Rag, which is the central key-card I think
Nomi could be busted, if it stacks. Not sure about that.
Garr seems super weak for a tavern 5 I need a power spike 6 drop. He needs a turn or two to grow to be useful.
I don't like Whirwind Tempest. There are barely any Windfury minions as of yet... so super wasteful.
Nota elemental, but I'm super convinced they put Deadly Spore into the minion pool as neutral to counter Pogos and the like.
They suffer same issue as Pirates, they are only a bunch of raw stats and have no keyword to snowball off of. So you're gonna need to make some kind of mix build for late game unless you want your entire board to suicide into two poison/ds Amalgadons.
Crackling Cyclone is the only divine shield/windfury they have, making it golden for Mega-Windfury is questionable since it doesn't double up divine shield it most likely will die after 2 attacks anyway.
Whirlwind Tempest is useless as again, minions aren't likely to survive more than 2 attacks.
Wildfire Elemental scales really bad compared to normal cleave, especially considering that attack into divine shield whiffs entire ability.
Gentle Djinni is the only deathrattle summon of entire archetype but elementals have no combat effects (just raw stats) so it's rather bad combat wise
Piloted Shredder, Knife Juggler, Mad Scientist, Dr. Boom
Need to be removed from this game
I'm sure it'll probably be bad, but it'll be interesting to see if Molten Rock and Party Elemental can create a viable low-tier build. Sellemental and Refreshing Anomaly both keep things moving at low tier, and if I ever get Aranna in an elementals game, I'm trying it.
Honestly its hard for me to judge from just looking at the cards. Excited we're getting new BGs content though.
I'm somewhat disappointed.
The tribe overall seems somewhat interesting, but mostly for gold managing purposes. Aside from that, I wouldn't want to seriously go for an Elemental build. Payoff cards like Majordomo, Garr and Nomi feel like they were designed for a different Battlegrounds than the one we are playing, where Poison, Divine Shield, Cleave, or Jandice don't exist, and where nobody dies before turn 10.
Majordomo not only forces you into buying only Elementals, you also rarely ever want to buff your left-most minion, even if it's a Cleave.
Garr is, at the very best, like an Annihilan Battlemaster, just a dude with lots of health that might occasionally receive some attack buffs. But unlike Battlemaster, it's a level 6 card, it forces you into running AND buying only Elementals, AND it STILL takes 2-3 turns to be of decent size, not to mention that most Elementals don't have abilities that make them worth keeping to begin with. All that for a single minion that most likely dies to a poisonous Murloc, Maexxna or the new Spore card. Or a Pogo that has 100 attack in addition to 100 health. Who in their right mind would pick Elementals and Garr over Dragons and Kalecgos?! And that's before we count in Nadina.
And Nomi is arguably even worse. Super slow and super inconsistent, just to get potential stats that other builds can accumulate on the board. And again, a lot of the Elementals are just not that good, even if they have massive stats. How are you supposed to survive if you seriously want to play Nomi? You have to buy all Elementals you see, and if you want to make use of the effect, you need to sell them again and find even more. At best, you can play 3-4 Elementals every turn, and it would still take like 5 really good turns for Nomi to give you endgame-level stats that you still need to aquire first. What's on your board in the meantime? You can only hope that you can perfectly replace your entire board every other turn.
You need good rolls with Murlocs too, but 2-3 good turns with Brann is usually enough to get them going, and you can keep the Murlocs you want and search for triples and get Poison on them. If you don't find Elementals frequent enough for more turns than you realistically have, your entire strategy collapses.
The best Elemental seems to be Lil'Rag, just because it doesn't force you into the tribe with a sledgehammer entirely, but aside from Tavern Tempest and maybe Stasis Elemental, you wouldn't even want to buy most of them in a Menagerie build.
Also, I wonder what takes longer: Jandice to get nerfed or Rakanishu to get buffed.
Elementals seems a little better than pirates. So, not so good. In the late game, they seems mediocre. The new heros instead seems good. Rag is an easy pic, +8/+8 every turn is so good. It will be probably nerfed in the conditions to reach Sulfuras.
Hell yeah. Thematically they're my favorite tribe. I loved Un'Goro.
Oh, and I'm gonna build some big ol' Garrs.
Garr is super, super strong in an elemental build. Hard to get through it without poison or mega stacked minions.
Gentle Djinn is decent. Just got 3 Amalgadons from him lol.
As expected Lil Rag is THE elemental to have for an elemental build.
First match:
2nd match. Elementals fall of HAAAAAAAAARD if you don't find Lil Rag. Jesus.
Also, lol +5 rating for 4th place. That a joke? I got 299 for first.
First game w/ Elementals. The entire Top 4 was elementals.
Uhhhhh....
I got a 299, 300, and 5 on my 4th places; one was a draw for 5th.
//
Anyhow, I'm overall mixed on Elementals. Lil Rag is great, Executus didn't impress me, but it wasn't a pure Ele build (early Micromachine triple into golden Goldgrubber on Reno, with a lead-off Deflect-o-Bot to take the buffs). Having a spattering of Divine Shield and Windfury seems useful, but the endgame boards I've seen looked good but not insurmountable compared to boards of Beasts or Dragons or Murlocs of similar quality levels.
If they come in better than Pirates, Mechs, or Demons is pretty good first day out. Folks might figure out how to play them or play against them better, so we'll see.
From games I've watched and played so far Ragneros is off the charts. Get a divine shield minion either end of your board and your golden.
Rakanishu seems super consistent. Using hero power every turn once you hit tavern 4 is a great way to get at least top 4 with almost no build.
Lil Rag is also another viable strategy to get stats apart from Brann and Lightfang. 2 slots and you get anywhere from 3-6 worth of stats per play.
I played Mech until I got 2 Lil Rags and then just buffed my divine shield egg, Shredder and Deadly Spore.
Super weird 3 times back to back draw against (now) second place. Deathwhing with divine shields and deathrattles.
How I didn't find that 3rd Shredder in 18 rounds with heavy rerolls is beyond me.
Fun bug...
Cup, Pitcher, and Lightforged do not work on Elementals
Some thoughts
- Balance changes are 100% incoming on multiple heroes and cards.
- Poison is so important
- The metagame is fast AF. This has some interesting tangential effects.
Rakinushu Turn 3 also feels pretty good. Can't always get a token start to buy two minions without selling something, so simply buying one and getting +2/+2 is pretty reasonable. I did it with a Red Whelp and had some really pleasant and easy first rounds, but I stink at transitioning out of that, so squandered it.
What the actual fuck were they thinking when it comes to Rag?
The hero power is online by like turn 5 and it's fucking insane.
It's a pretty egregious oversight.
yep, elementals are more broken IMO than Murlocs with Adapt were, full board of maximum stats, not just one or two minions with mega stats, all board is like 50+hp and 30+ attack... it is stupid in case of big demons you had to pay your health here you just play cards and they have synergies... power creep is hitting hard Battlegrounds, also Jandice seems to be more balanced now, when there are more minion pool shifts, but when she hits Pogo its easy top 4, Ragnaros is pure BS... too much buffs, they nerfed Enforcer to the ground just so they could release even more oppresive stat gain... I thought that Al Akir will be OP, he´s not bad, neither OP, over all balance changes are needed
Have pogos been removed? I just went a whole game with Jandice on tier 2 and didn't see a single pogo in the many tevern refreshes. I didn't even buy minions the last few rounds, just refreshing out of pure spite. Not one showed up.