So I've seen people hyping up Hunter and Shaman as the expected best arena classes but from the games I've played: Three 12 win runs on Mage yesterday, on Shaman I got one 7 wins and one 6 wins. I haven't tried hunter yet but I've played against quite a few and tbh their exclusives are good but it doesn't seem to be that insane. Let me explain why I think these classes aren't as good as people thought and why Mage is top dog IMO.
Hunter: Chronoshot and Infinite Wolf are insanely powerful standalone cards both 5 star cards for sure. The problem is that Hunter in general isn't that amazing in Arena. Having a hero power that doesn't affect the board and very little card draw/aoe generally means if you fall behind you just lose. Sure Chronoshot and Infinite Wolf make it harder to fall behind but it's still relatively easy for classes with aoe to clear the board and after that they just win.
Shaman: Stasis Elemental is pretty strong for sure but after you kill it, whatever it froze can immediately attack which makes it a lot worse than I initially thought. In practice I found I'd play it on 4 and freeze their 3 drop and have a pretty good tempo lead but if they had removal later on, them being able to attack immediately with the frozen minion really hurt.
Master of Realities on the other hand is really powerful and I think it singlehandedly brings Shaman up to the 2nd best class behind mage which I'll get to in a second. Just playing it flat on 6 with no combo piece is fine. a 5/7 for 6 is reasonable stats and it's pretty likely to stick around for your turn 7. Even if you just hero power and play a 5 drop you're getting a lot of value. Not to mention combos with cards like Saronite Chain Gang etc.
Mage: Cavern Dreamer is busted. That's it. That's the sole reason I think Mage is far and away the best class. I'm trying to wrap my head around why most people on here rated Cavern Dreamer as "pretty good" instead of batshit bonkers. It's basically Mana Tide Totem but with +1 attack and -1 Mana. I know what you're thinking, "Yeah but Mana Tide draws a card which is better than adding a random low cost spell to your hand." Arguably drawing a low cost spell is better in the early game than drawing a card from your deck because you're far more likely to get a card you can immediately play rather than draw a high cost card from your deck. There are 129 spells that cost 1-2 mana. Out of those, about 47 range from bad to useless (36%). The other 82 range from pretty good to insane (64%) So if you play this card on turn 2 you're getting a 1/3 and a 64% chance to draw a pretty good card that is most likely going to be useful especially in the early game. If your opponent doesn't immediately kill it then every single turn after that you're generating insane value. So many times I've played it on turn 2 and had my opponent play a 3/2 or a 2/3 into it but I use a card generated by Cavern Dreamer to kill it. 46/129 possible spells he generates are either buffs or early game removal that can be used to keep him alive if they don't have an immediate answer. Not to mention the card has insane synergy with cards like Mana Wyrm, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Leyline Manipulator, Vex Crow etc. If you just play it and they immediately remove it your opponent had to waste a card to deal with it and you lost no card advantage. Rarely ever does that happen because they'd need to a have a 2 mana deal 3 damage on turn 2 which isn't very likely. So nearly in every game that you have it on turn 2 you get at least 2 draws out of it. I've ran away with so many games because I've gotten 2-3 draws off Cavern Dreamer and forced the opponent to waste so many resources to get rid of it that by the time they do they're too behind in tempo and card advantage to win. Cavern Dreamer also has really good synergy with Possibility Seeker because even though the low cost spells are arguably better than cards from your deck in the early turns, by turn 4 they're not as useful and it's really good to be able to shuffle them back into the deck to draw higher cost cards.
Consider the Past is really an amazing card even if it gets completely overshadowed by the brokenness that is Cavern Dreamer. Consider the Past is basically as good as a Cabalist Tome with a 1 mana discount. Cabalist Tome was a reasonably good card. Putting a 1 mana discount on it makes it really good. Not much else to say other than the fact that your hand can get a bit cloggy with Consider the Past + Cavern Dreamer.
Mage as a class also has pretty good synergy with quite a few of the new Neutrals.
Timebound Giant is a much better card in classes with card draw and with Arcane Intellect and Book of Specters, Mage isn't lacking in that department.
Temporal Anomaly is a really good card in general but Mage in particular has a lot of spell synergy.
Timeway Wanderer works best if you hit a spell that costs 5 or more and oh boy does mage have quite a few really good high cost spells.
Not only do I think Cavern Dreamer is the best arena exclusive, I think Cavern Dreamer is literally the best single card in any class in arena right now and that, coupled mage getting a pretty good card in Consider The Past and the fact that mage has natural synergies with a lot of the neutrals and has always been a really solid arena class makes mage the best class in this new arena meta. This is just my opinion though.
Completely agree. Not bad later in the game either, especially if you have a better means of keeping them around. Worst case scenario, you paid 1-2 mana to soak up 3-5 damage. More often than not you can nab two or three cards, and earlier in the game the tempo from low cost spells starts your snowball. If you can get a vex crow going... two cards worth six mana will win you every game against aoe-starved opponents, or at least force a big board clear.
Mage also has fairly consistent card draw which works nicely with Timebound Giant and the incredibly strong Infinity Murloc.
Also noticed Infinity Murloc and Priest work well together, if your opponent is running one (bonus if you are too) a thoughtsteal or devour mind towards the end of the game is insta-win. Rogue, Shaman, anything battlecry/copy minion oriented works to great effect too.
Hunters infinite wolf is probably still a top card, but the 4 mana cost that hits once and is removed just doesn't work as well in a class with minimal card draw.
Good points about mage and its synergies with the neutrals. The ability to play both tempo and value together make Mage a huge threat. The arena exclusive class cards are on the strong end although I would not think that Consider the Past is a premium card. On average you get 2 playable cards from it. And generally randomly generated cards are worse then ones you draft. It's about right. I'd rather take Tome since it narrows your choices to a class instead of being able to get Confuse for example.
Completely agree, bonkers snowball card. Especially doesn’t help when Khadgar is spamming emotes like “oh my, oops” after getting shadow word pain from this little guy. Like sorry I was playing a minion bro.
I would not think that Consider the Past is a premium card. On average you get 2 playable cards from it. And generally randomly generated cards are worse then ones you draft. It's about right. I'd rather take Tome since it narrows your choices to a class instead of being able to get Confuse for example.
I wouldn't call Consider the Past a premium card exactly and wouldn't pick it unless I had a deck that justified the tempo loss but it is amazing value. I don't think Tome is better in the slightest, mainly because although your're narrowing down the card pool you're not necessarily increasing the quality of potential cards. There are 34 Mage spells in Standard and 15 of them (46%) range from trash to okayish , the other 17 (54%) range from good to great. So you've got about a little more than a 50/50 chance of getting something at least good. There are 145 wild spells. 80 (55%) of them range from trash to okayish and 65 (45%) of them range from good to great. So you've got a little under a 50/50 chance of getting something at least good. There are a lot of trash cards in Wild but for every Confuse, there's a Dragonfire Potion. I still think Conisder the Past is way better than Cabalist Tome though. The Wild spell cardpool is worse than the mage one but only ever so slightly. A 1 mana discount is definitely worth the slightly worse cardpool you pull from imo
Yesterday I went 1/7 against mage (i beat one with mage lol) in three runs. There was a game where I couldn't remove cavern dreamer at all before I died and it wasn't that quick. At one point he had 5 secrets down.
The game I lost was against a priest who was able to holy water/holy nova quickly then completely crush me with his massive endgame, until I burnt through my whole deck. My cavern dreamers gave me about 10 cards but they were mostly crap with 0 removal. They are amazing 90% of the time, but during that other 10% it just fills your hand with useless crap like deadly poison, leeching poison, ice fishing, draw non-existent weapons, etc.
It's not like Mage wasn't a top arena class already. Thanks for ruining Arena whoever decided to add Cavern Dreamer to the Mage pool. And it's not like it's rare. Having 3+ copies of it is quite common for a Mage deck.
So I've seen people hyping up Hunter and Shaman as the expected best arena classes but from the games I've played: Three 12 win runs on Mage yesterday, on Shaman I got one 7 wins and one 6 wins. I haven't tried hunter yet but I've played against quite a few and tbh their exclusives are good but it doesn't seem to be that insane. Let me explain why I think these classes aren't as good as people thought and why Mage is top dog IMO.
Hunter:
Chronoshot and Infinite Wolf are insanely powerful standalone cards both 5 star cards for sure. The problem is that Hunter in general isn't that amazing in Arena. Having a hero power that doesn't affect the board and very little card draw/aoe generally means if you fall behind you just lose. Sure Chronoshot and Infinite Wolf make it harder to fall behind but it's still relatively easy for classes with aoe to clear the board and after that they just win.
Shaman:
Stasis Elemental is pretty strong for sure but after you kill it, whatever it froze can immediately attack which makes it a lot worse than I initially thought. In practice I found I'd play it on 4 and freeze their 3 drop and have a pretty good tempo lead but if they had removal later on, them being able to attack immediately with the frozen minion really hurt.
Master of Realities on the other hand is really powerful and I think it singlehandedly brings Shaman up to the 2nd best class behind mage which I'll get to in a second. Just playing it flat on 6 with no combo piece is fine. a 5/7 for 6 is reasonable stats and it's pretty likely to stick around for your turn 7. Even if you just hero power and play a 5 drop you're getting a lot of value. Not to mention combos with cards like Saronite Chain Gang etc.
Mage:
Cavern Dreamer is busted. That's it. That's the sole reason I think Mage is far and away the best class. I'm trying to wrap my head around why most people on here rated Cavern Dreamer as "pretty good" instead of batshit bonkers. It's basically Mana Tide Totem but with +1 attack and -1 Mana. I know what you're thinking, "Yeah but Mana Tide draws a card which is better than adding a random low cost spell to your hand." Arguably drawing a low cost spell is better in the early game than drawing a card from your deck because you're far more likely to get a card you can immediately play rather than draw a high cost card from your deck. There are 129 spells that cost 1-2 mana. Out of those, about 47 range from bad to useless (36%). The other 82 range from pretty good to insane (64%) So if you play this card on turn 2 you're getting a 1/3 and a 64% chance to draw a pretty good card that is most likely going to be useful especially in the early game. If your opponent doesn't immediately kill it then every single turn after that you're generating insane value. So many times I've played it on turn 2 and had my opponent play a 3/2 or a 2/3 into it but I use a card generated by Cavern Dreamer to kill it. 46/129 possible spells he generates are either buffs or early game removal that can be used to keep him alive if they don't have an immediate answer. Not to mention the card has insane synergy with cards like Mana Wyrm, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Leyline Manipulator, Vex Crow etc. If you just play it and they immediately remove it your opponent had to waste a card to deal with it and you lost no card advantage. Rarely ever does that happen because they'd need to a have a 2 mana deal 3 damage on turn 2 which isn't very likely. So nearly in every game that you have it on turn 2 you get at least 2 draws out of it. I've ran away with so many games because I've gotten 2-3 draws off Cavern Dreamer and forced the opponent to waste so many resources to get rid of it that by the time they do they're too behind in tempo and card advantage to win. Cavern Dreamer also has really good synergy with Possibility Seeker because even though the low cost spells are arguably better than cards from your deck in the early turns, by turn 4 they're not as useful and it's really good to be able to shuffle them back into the deck to draw higher cost cards.
Consider the Past is really an amazing card even if it gets completely overshadowed by the brokenness that is Cavern Dreamer. Consider the Past is basically as good as a Cabalist Tome with a 1 mana discount. Cabalist Tome was a reasonably good card. Putting a 1 mana discount on it makes it really good. Not much else to say other than the fact that your hand can get a bit cloggy with Consider the Past + Cavern Dreamer.
Mage as a class also has pretty good synergy with quite a few of the new Neutrals.
Timebound Giant is a much better card in classes with card draw and with Arcane Intellect and Book of Specters, Mage isn't lacking in that department.
Temporal Anomaly is a really good card in general but Mage in particular has a lot of spell synergy.
Timeway Wanderer works best if you hit a spell that costs 5 or more and oh boy does mage have quite a few really good high cost spells.
Not only do I think Cavern Dreamer is the best arena exclusive, I think Cavern Dreamer is literally the best single card in any class in arena right now and that, coupled mage getting a pretty good card in Consider The Past and the fact that mage has natural synergies with a lot of the neutrals and has always been a really solid arena class makes mage the best class in this new arena meta. This is just my opinion though.
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Completely agree. Not bad later in the game either, especially if you have a better means of keeping them around. Worst case scenario, you paid 1-2 mana to soak up 3-5 damage. More often than not you can nab two or three cards, and earlier in the game the tempo from low cost spells starts your snowball. If you can get a vex crow going... two cards worth six mana will win you every game against aoe-starved opponents, or at least force a big board clear.
Mage also has fairly consistent card draw which works nicely with Timebound Giant and the incredibly strong Infinity Murloc.
Also noticed Infinity Murloc and Priest work well together, if your opponent is running one (bonus if you are too) a thoughtsteal or devour mind towards the end of the game is insta-win. Rogue, Shaman, anything battlecry/copy minion oriented works to great effect too.
Just some quick thoughts.
Hunters infinite wolf is probably still a top card, but the 4 mana cost that hits once and is removed just doesn't work as well in a class with minimal card draw.
Good points about mage and its synergies with the neutrals. The ability to play both tempo and value together make Mage a huge threat. The arena exclusive class cards are on the strong end although I would not think that Consider the Past is a premium card. On average you get 2 playable cards from it. And generally randomly generated cards are worse then ones you draft. It's about right. I'd rather take Tome since it narrows your choices to a class instead of being able to get Confuse for example.
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Drafted a deck with 4 Cavern Dreamers, I'd have drafted more of they were offered. Absolutely insane
Completely agree, bonkers snowball card. Especially doesn’t help when Khadgar is spamming emotes like “oh my, oops” after getting shadow word pain from this little guy. Like sorry I was playing a minion bro.
I wouldn't call Consider the Past a premium card exactly and wouldn't pick it unless I had a deck that justified the tempo loss but it is amazing value. I don't think Tome is better in the slightest, mainly because although your're narrowing down the card pool you're not necessarily increasing the quality of potential cards. There are 34 Mage spells in Standard and 15 of them (46%) range from trash to okayish , the other 17 (54%) range from good to great. So you've got about a little more than a 50/50 chance of getting something at least good. There are 145 wild spells. 80 (55%) of them range from trash to okayish and 65 (45%) of them range from good to great. So you've got a little under a 50/50 chance of getting something at least good. There are a lot of trash cards in Wild but for every Confuse, there's a Dragonfire Potion. I still think Conisder the Past is way better than Cabalist Tome though. The Wild spell cardpool is worse than the mage one but only ever so slightly. A 1 mana discount is definitely worth the slightly worse cardpool you pull from imo
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Yesterday I went 1/7 against mage (i beat one with mage lol) in three runs. There was a game where I couldn't remove cavern dreamer at all before I died and it wasn't that quick. At one point he had 5 secrets down.
Look and despair.
The game I lost was against a priest who was able to holy water/holy nova quickly then completely crush me with his massive endgame, until I burnt through my whole deck. My cavern dreamers gave me about 10 cards but they were mostly crap with 0 removal. They are amazing 90% of the time, but during that other 10% it just fills your hand with useless crap like deadly poison, leeching poison, ice fishing, draw non-existent weapons, etc.
Currently stopped at 8-1, need to do some work.
Holy shit that's insane. 12 wins I'd imagine?
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It's not like Mage wasn't a top arena class already. Thanks for ruining Arena whoever decided to add Cavern Dreamer to the Mage pool. And it's not like it's rare. Having 3+ copies of it is quite common for a Mage deck.