Big minions seem to be the meta today, there is very few hard removal. Especially stupid derranged doctor,which is not a very good card, is in every other deck and it just works lol.
Funny because in 4 runs I’ve mostly been offer low cost minions so I am forced to play super aggro which kinda sucks
Big minions seem to be the meta today, there is very few hard removal. Especially stupid derranged doctor,which is not a very good card, is in every other deck and it just works lol.
Funny because in 4 runs I’ve mostly been offer low cost minions so I am forced to play super aggro which kinda sucks
Yeah, sometimes you just dont have much of an option and even if you get offered big things later in the draft, you probably still have to keep the direction your deck was heading anyway, otherwise you just do everything and nothing.
I would have to disagree Sinti with big minions being meta. It's all about tempo, value generation and comboing. If you have all of those in a draft you're typically going to do very well, if it's just big minions you have you will get destroyed. The top tier classes still have plenty of hard removal and board clear. A rogue will dumpster a card like Deranged Doctor, they still have Sap, Walk the Plank, Assassinate, Kidnapper, Unidentified Contract, Shadow Strike. My 11-12 win drafts had maybe 4-6 big minions.
I would have to disagree Sinti with big minions being meta. It's all about tempo, value generation and comboing. If you have all of those in a draft you're typically going to do very well, if it's just big minions you have you will get destroyed. The top tier classes still have plenty of hard removal and board clear. A rogue will dumpster a card like Deranged Doctor, they still have Sap, Walk the Plank, Assassinate, Kidnapper, Unidentified Contract, Shadow Strike. My 11-12 win drafts had maybe 4-6 big minions.
Lots of removal still out there or ways to play around big minions.
Yeah, locks can boardwipe. And then rogue fills board again. And again. And again. And then goes for a second evis - at 1-1 - for lethal. Locks are overrated, because 3 boardwipes mean nothing when even at low wins, people refill immediately. I'd hate to see what happens against someone at 5+ wins. Lack of healing contributes here; you've got mistress, travelling healer, and applebaum as main heals, with the odd thing like Siphon or similar, combined with lock boardwipes hurting your face. You have legendaries played in over 50% of games - and they're usually good ones, or at least with heavy synergy - Kel'thuzad, Geddon, Y'sharrj, and so on. Many of these demand a hard boardwipe or you lose immediately, and even then they've often got value already. A reactive gameplan just does not seem to work well against a lot of the tempo-ish rogue decks (and pure aggro often runs out of steam).
Mages get a lot of boardwipes and removal tools, but it's RNG as to what you'll actually get in the game half the time, because of the random spell generation - and the RNG in Arena is pretty annoying already, I'm finding, with evolves into Anton, power disparity between lackeys, and similar.
I'm not disagreeing with you - just pointing out that - in my experience - some of these things are heavily overrated. It often feels closer than it is, as well, with things like stabilization at sub-5HP - but if the aggro player's still at high health, the only thing is if the aggro player drafted/can produce (because blizz love random spell generation) reach. It's feeling like you have to have a near perfect draft, or you get run over by paladins with double BoK and double 3/2 that produces dragons, top-tier legendaries, and similar, if you're control, and if you're aggro, then half the time your draft options are so bad that you can't actually compete with a single taunt (and there's a fair few of them around).
It feels bad to go "Well, that's a decent deck, but it's 1-2 because legendaries and strong opponent decks" and be unable to improve on it, realistically - and don't forget we're still using buckets of "you will get X bad/utterly abysmal cards and you cannot change that".
Priest is definitely top tier. Went 12-2 with my first run, at 7-0 atm. They have pretty much every insane card they've ever had.
How are you succeeding in a controlling playstyle? All of priest's tools are, pretty much, not tempo gains, just good control tools, right? So don't you have a similar issue to lock, in that you get wrecked by tempo just going "whee, board refill every turn, because lackeys, draw, and other stuff!"? Or is the healing enough to pull you back? When I tried (unsurprisingly the arena deck's been lost by HA), I couldn't deal with top-end legendaries like KT/Y'sharrj, with mages popping out multiple charging 4/2s (or multiple Illidans), and similar. Not to mention that some tools - like potion of madness - are just made so useless by the metagame changes that they're not worth having - pretty much no targets for them. I just don't really see how the reactive, priest playstyle can work (unless we've got another metagame where I'm seeing completely different stuff to everyone else, a la WW).
I'm not a regular Arena player, but the new format had me interested. I got a free ticket off an unfinished run, that went 4-3. I think it was Warlock...
Then I drafted a deck for Rogue today, started 0-2 with a deck stacked with various card generation, combo cards, late game taunts... Was thinking I really suck at Arena! Then I went 12 straight wins for my first ever 12 win run! So I guess you could say I'm really happy with Arena right now!
Priest is definitely top tier. Went 12-2 with my first run, at 7-0 atm. They have pretty much every insane card they've ever had.
How are you succeeding in a controlling playstyle? All of priest's tools are, pretty much, not tempo gains, just good control tools, right? So don't you have a similar issue to lock, in that you get wrecked by tempo just going "whee, board refill every turn, because lackeys, draw, and other stuff!"? Or is the healing enough to pull you back? When I tried (unsurprisingly the arena deck's been lost by HA), I couldn't deal with top-end legendaries like KT/Y'sharrj, with mages popping out multiple charging 4/2s (or multiple Illidans), and similar. Not to mention that some tools - like potion of madness - are just made so useless by the metagame changes that they're not worth having - pretty much no targets for them. I just don't really see how the reactive, priest playstyle can work (unless we've got another metagame where I'm seeing completely different stuff to everyone else, a la WW).
Priest has best 3-drops and best 4-drops by far. Kabal talonpriest, Dark cultist, new 4-7 guy... these are insane. I play priest in a more midrang-y way (which always been a go-to way for priest, tbh. priest is my favorite class to play arena, even when he sucked). Just play big dudes, heal them and squeeze value from them. Supplement stat-efficient dudes with health buffs, northshire cleric, and you'll beat most of the stuff you can get in Arena.
One of my games: rogue turn 1 zombie chow, going first. What could be worse? Then, I disconnect... Then, I come back at turn 3 seeing that he played huckster. I just put that 4-7 dude via coin and we are even. Proceed with other ridiculously strong cards, while at the same time abusing hero power.
I don't think anything can beat a good (not great, just good) priest deck that draws well. Kabal Talonpriest is essentially 3/7 for 3. It would be a good 4-drop, but it is a 3-drop.
Also, dragonfire potion is nuts. But these are not too common.
I'm not a regular Arena player, but the new format had me interested. I got a free ticket off an unfinished run, that went 4-3. I think it was Warlock...
Then I drafted a deck for Rogue today, started 0-2 with a deck stacked with various card generation, combo cards, late game taunts... Was thinking I really suck at Arena! Then I went 12 straight wins for my first ever 12 win run! So I guess you could say I'm really happy with Arena right now!
Quite honestly, I view that as very worrisome. It's the nutty decks that go 1-2 which really ruins the format for me. Not when you queue into broken tripe regardless of your win level.
I did my first ROS 12 to day with rouge. Rouge seems OP, shaman is good, i tried priest also. I wasn't go less then 6-3 and it was 1 time. Rest my runs was 7-10 then 12 to day. For me there is no reason to play rankeds, arena is so cool now :D
Priest is definitely top tier. Went 12-2 with my first run, at 7-0 atm. They have pretty much every insane card they've ever had.
How are you succeeding in a controlling playstyle? All of priest's tools are, pretty much, not tempo gains, just good control tools, right? So don't you have a similar issue to lock, in that you get wrecked by tempo just going "whee, board refill every turn, because lackeys, draw, and other stuff!"? Or is the healing enough to pull you back? When I tried (unsurprisingly the arena deck's been lost by HA), I couldn't deal with top-end legendaries like KT/Y'sharrj, with mages popping out multiple charging 4/2s (or multiple Illidans), and similar. Not to mention that some tools - like potion of madness - are just made so useless by the metagame changes that they're not worth having - pretty much no targets for them. I just don't really see how the reactive, priest playstyle can work (unless we've got another metagame where I'm seeing completely different stuff to everyone else, a la WW).
Priest has best 3-drops and best 4-drops by far. Kabal talonpriest, Dark cultist, new 4-7 guy... these are insane. I play priest in a more midrang-y way (which always been a go-to way for priest, tbh. priest is my favorite class to play arena, even when he sucked). Just play big dudes, heal them and squeeze value from them. Supplement stat-efficient dudes with health buffs, northshire cleric, and you'll beat most of the stuff you can get in Arena.
One of my games: rogue turn 1 zombie chow, going first. What could be worse? Then, I disconnect... Then, I come back at turn 3 seeing that he played huckster. I just put that 4-7 dude via coin and we are even. Proceed with other ridiculously strong cards, while at the same time abusing hero power.
I don't think anything can beat a good (not great, just good) priest deck that draws well. Kabal Talonpriest is essentially 3/7 for 3. It would be a good 4-drop, but it is a 3-drop.
Also, dragonfire potion is nuts. But these are not too common.
Anything I've tried to do that hasn't been balls to the wall aggro has failed miserably. In part because legendaries are everywhere. Sure, I'll just beat that Y'sharrj... not. As is random evolve tripe (Random evolve into Anton, for example). I think the 4/7 should be good, but when I get one or two hard removal spells, I cannot beat random Geddons which finish off the board, random mages dropping in a khadgar and power of creation for 4 argent commanders, portal keeper RNG (literally one the next turn and two the turn after that), or a warrior going for 4 echo whirlwinds, double coin into a randomly generated mana cyclone. You just cannot beat that level of value, and that's what's happened, consistently, when I have tried to build anything that isn't aggro. Like the slower lock deck - wiped out by huge reach aggro decks, endless refill paladins with dragon producers, and similar. Dragonfire potion is decent, but not nuts - because people refill very, very fast, I find (oh, look, 8 mana, summon two illidans). Feels like you need to get a perfect curve for priest decks to be able to keep board until the lategame, at which game you, uhh, hope to not get wrecked by legendaries?
And yes, all of those situations are ones I've seen since the start of RoS. If Arena wasn't the best route for gold->packs, even with going 1-3 in half my drafts (had two 1-3s, a 2-3, and a 10-3; the first was partly down to overpicking what turned out to be a bad card. The other bad ones were attempts at slower decks - the 10 was a solid hunter, that still hit 5-2), I'd not bother at all. It feels crappy going "well, that was a decent deck, with multiple wipes, multiple hard removals, and some topend for once, but only one win!"
Priest is definitely top tier. Went 12-2 with my first run, at 7-0 atm. They have pretty much every insane card they've ever had.
How are you succeeding in a controlling playstyle? All of priest's tools are, pretty much, not tempo gains, just good control tools, right? So don't you have a similar issue to lock, in that you get wrecked by tempo just going "whee, board refill every turn, because lackeys, draw, and other stuff!"? Or is the healing enough to pull you back? When I tried (unsurprisingly the arena deck's been lost by HA), I couldn't deal with top-end legendaries like KT/Y'sharrj, with mages popping out multiple charging 4/2s (or multiple Illidans), and similar. Not to mention that some tools - like potion of madness - are just made so useless by the metagame changes that they're not worth having - pretty much no targets for them. I just don't really see how the reactive, priest playstyle can work (unless we've got another metagame where I'm seeing completely different stuff to everyone else, a la WW).
Priest has best 3-drops and best 4-drops by far. Kabal talonpriest, Dark cultist, new 4-7 guy... these are insane. I play priest in a more midrang-y way (which always been a go-to way for priest, tbh. priest is my favorite class to play arena, even when he sucked). Just play big dudes, heal them and squeeze value from them. Supplement stat-efficient dudes with health buffs, northshire cleric, and you'll beat most of the stuff you can get in Arena.
One of my games: rogue turn 1 zombie chow, going first. What could be worse? Then, I disconnect... Then, I come back at turn 3 seeing that he played huckster. I just put that 4-7 dude via coin and we are even. Proceed with other ridiculously strong cards, while at the same time abusing hero power.
I don't think anything can beat a good (not great, just good) priest deck that draws well. Kabal Talonpriest is essentially 3/7 for 3. It would be a good 4-drop, but it is a 3-drop.
Also, dragonfire potion is nuts. But these are not too common.
Anything I've tried to do that hasn't been balls to the wall aggro has failed miserably. In part because legendaries are everywhere. Sure, I'll just beat that Y'sharrj... not. As is random evolve tripe (Random evolve into Anton, for example). I think the 4/7 should be good, but when I get one or two hard removal spells, I cannot beat random Geddons which finish off the board, random mages dropping in a khadgar and power of creation for 4 argent commanders, portal keeper RNG (literally one the next turn and two the turn after that), or a warrior going for 4 echo whirlwinds, double coin into a randomly generated mana cyclone. You just cannot beat that level of value, and that's what's happened, consistently, when I have tried to build anything that isn't aggro. Like the slower lock deck - wiped out by huge reach aggro decks, endless refill paladins with dragon producers, and similar. Dragonfire potion is decent, but not nuts - because people refill very, very fast, I find (oh, look, 8 mana, summon two illidans). Feels like you need to get a perfect curve for priest decks to be able to keep board until the lategame, at which game you, uhh, hope to not get wrecked by legendaries?
And yes, all of those situations are ones I've seen since the start of RoS. If Arena wasn't the best route for gold->packs, even with going 1-3 in half my drafts (had two 1-3s, a 2-3, and a 10-3; the first was partly down to overpicking what turned out to be a bad card. The other bad ones were attempts at slower decks - the 10 was a solid hunter, that still hit 5-2), I'd not bother at all. It feels crappy going "well, that was a decent deck, with multiple wipes, multiple hard removals, and some topend for once, but only one win!"
Looks like you got hit by a bad luck spree, tbh. Or I got hit by a good luck ;)
Things you describe would make me quit Arena I think. However in my games, honestly, I feel sorry for my opponent. Probably feels really bad to play against such a priest deck.
My current deck is:
Holy Smite Northshire Cleric Amani Berserker Crazed Alchemist EVIL Conscripter x 2 River Crocolisk Dark Cultist Faceless Rager Hired Gun Kabal Talonpriest Shadow Word: Death Thoughtsteal Hench-Clan Shadequill x 4 Hozen Healer Proud Defender Swift Messenger Corrupted Healbot Darkshire Alchemist x 2 Kabal Songstealer x 2 Quartz Elemental Dragonfire Potion Holy Fire Bog Creeper Deranged Doctor
9-0 so far.
Edit: ended up 12-1. Lost once due to terrible draw (only 2-drop was crazed alchemist and then I had a 5-drop Quartz Elemental against a token druid).
I would have to disagree Sinti with big minions being meta. It's all about tempo, value generation and comboing. If you have all of those in a draft you're typically going to do very well, if it's just big minions you have you will get destroyed. The top tier classes still have plenty of hard removal and board clear. A rogue will dumpster a card like Deranged Doctor, they still have Sap, Walk the Plank, Assassinate, Kidnapper, Unidentified Contract, Shadow Strike. My 11-12 win drafts had maybe 4-6 big minions.
Lots of removal still out there or ways to play around big minions.
Yeah, locks can boardwipe. And then rogue fills board again. And again. And again. And then goes for a second evis - at 1-1 - for lethal. Locks are overrated, because 3 boardwipes mean nothing when even at low wins, people refill immediately. I'd hate to see what happens against someone at 5+ wins. Lack of healing contributes here; you've got mistress, travelling healer, and applebaum as main heals, with the odd thing like Siphon or similar, combined with lock boardwipes hurting your face. You have legendaries played in over 50% of games - and they're usually good ones, or at least with heavy synergy - Kel'thuzad, Geddon, Y'sharrj, and so on. Many of these demand a hard boardwipe or you lose immediately, and even then they've often got value already. A reactive gameplan just does not seem to work well against a lot of the tempo-ish rogue decks (and pure aggro often runs out of steam).
Mages get a lot of boardwipes and removal tools, but it's RNG as to what you'll actually get in the game half the time, because of the random spell generation - and the RNG in Arena is pretty annoying already, I'm finding, with evolves into Anton, power disparity between lackeys, and similar.
I'm not disagreeing with you - just pointing out that - in my experience - some of these things are heavily overrated. It often feels closer than it is, as well, with things like stabilization at sub-5HP - but if the aggro player's still at high health, the only thing is if the aggro player drafted/can produce (because blizz love random spell generation) reach. It's feeling like you have to have a near perfect draft, or you get run over by paladins with double BoK and double 3/2 that produces dragons, top-tier legendaries, and similar, if you're control, and if you're aggro, then half the time your draft options are so bad that you can't actually compete with a single taunt (and there's a fair few of them around).
It feels bad to go "Well, that's a decent deck, but it's 1-2 because legendaries and strong opponent decks" and be unable to improve on it, realistically - and don't forget we're still using buckets of "you will get X bad/utterly abysmal cards and you cannot change that".
That's why you take cards like Messenger Raven and lackeys whenever possible they offer value and a 2nd way to get powerful cards.
Warlock is not underrated but it's defiantly the class that gets underrated the most. Also board clears at the right time wins you games, it's no different then a well timed Flamestrike. You can consistency punish over committing which lots of players do all the time.
Priest is definitely top tier. Went 12-2 with my first run, at 7-0 atm. They have pretty much every insane card they've ever had.
How are you succeeding in a controlling playstyle? All of priest's tools are, pretty much, not tempo gains, just good control tools, right? So don't you have a similar issue to lock, in that you get wrecked by tempo just going "whee, board refill every turn, because lackeys, draw, and other stuff!"? Or is the healing enough to pull you back? When I tried (unsurprisingly the arena deck's been lost by HA), I couldn't deal with top-end legendaries like KT/Y'sharrj, with mages popping out multiple charging 4/2s (or multiple Illidans), and similar. Not to mention that some tools - like potion of madness - are just made so useless by the metagame changes that they're not worth having - pretty much no targets for them. I just don't really see how the reactive, priest playstyle can work (unless we've got another metagame where I'm seeing completely different stuff to everyone else, a la WW).
Priest has best 3-drops and best 4-drops by far. Kabal talonpriest, Dark cultist, new 4-7 guy... these are insane. I play priest in a more midrang-y way (which always been a go-to way for priest, tbh. priest is my favorite class to play arena, even when he sucked). Just play big dudes, heal them and squeeze value from them. Supplement stat-efficient dudes with health buffs, northshire cleric, and you'll beat most of the stuff you can get in Arena.
One of my games: rogue turn 1 zombie chow, going first. What could be worse? Then, I disconnect... Then, I come back at turn 3 seeing that he played huckster. I just put that 4-7 dude via coin and we are even. Proceed with other ridiculously strong cards, while at the same time abusing hero power.
I don't think anything can beat a good (not great, just good) priest deck that draws well. Kabal Talonpriest is essentially 3/7 for 3. It would be a good 4-drop, but it is a 3-drop.
Also, dragonfire potion is nuts. But these are not too common.
Anything I've tried to do that hasn't been balls to the wall aggro has failed miserably. In part because legendaries are everywhere. Sure, I'll just beat that Y'sharrj... not. As is random evolve tripe (Random evolve into Anton, for example). I think the 4/7 should be good, but when I get one or two hard removal spells, I cannot beat random Geddons which finish off the board, random mages dropping in a khadgar and power of creation for 4 argent commanders, portal keeper RNG (literally one the next turn and two the turn after that), or a warrior going for 4 echo whirlwinds, double coin into a randomly generated mana cyclone. You just cannot beat that level of value, and that's what's happened, consistently, when I have tried to build anything that isn't aggro. Like the slower lock deck - wiped out by huge reach aggro decks, endless refill paladins with dragon producers, and similar. Dragonfire potion is decent, but not nuts - because people refill very, very fast, I find (oh, look, 8 mana, summon two illidans). Feels like you need to get a perfect curve for priest decks to be able to keep board until the lategame, at which game you, uhh, hope to not get wrecked by legendaries?
And yes, all of those situations are ones I've seen since the start of RoS. If Arena wasn't the best route for gold->packs, even with going 1-3 in half my drafts (had two 1-3s, a 2-3, and a 10-3; the first was partly down to overpicking what turned out to be a bad card. The other bad ones were attempts at slower decks - the 10 was a solid hunter, that still hit 5-2), I'd not bother at all. It feels crappy going "well, that was a decent deck, with multiple wipes, multiple hard removals, and some topend for once, but only one win!"
If you're consistently getting 1-4 wins it's because of your own skill and game play, making mistakes and not realizing them.
If you're consistently getting 1-4 wins it's because of your own skill and game play, making mistakes and not realizing them.
The first 1-3 was due to bad picks - expecting the burglar to be good, when in fact it's basically just a 4 mana 4/3 because the choices are that bad (rarely had anything I could cast from them), expecting the 2 mana 2/3 that gets buffed to be more than vanilla most of the time with 6+ activators, stuff like that (though also misplays due to not reading the cards sometimes, the deck was simply outclassed). The 2-3 and 1-3 were basically decent-good control decks that got wrecked by legendaries, a bad metagame for control, and RNG. Yes, there will have been misplays, but some plays are pretty unbeatable, like Khadgar into summon two copies of a 6-drop (a single card that basically demands a boardwipe all by itself if on a vaguely empty board, even alone), or mages getting evolves into Anton and multiple fireballs.
Even with good play those two controllish decks could not have gone above 3 wins, IMHO. No real point me aiming for slow, reactive decks, because I can't get them to work when stupid value legendaries wreck things - which, to try and stay on topic, is my argument. So many legendaries, so much of an issue controlling past good ones. Also a grumble about the lack of healing for locks, with all the self-harm AEs.
This run is shafted, because I'm too slow, as a Hunter. Can't beat board refills every turn for multiple turns (thanks, Twinspells!), which get buffed. If it says Twinspell, it's probably overpowered (not sure on the mage one, but oth druid ones and the 6 mana hunter one are ridiculous).
Funny because in 4 runs I’ve mostly been offer low cost minions so I am forced to play super aggro which kinda sucks
Arena is pretty good right now. Im currently 6-0 with rogue
Yeah, sometimes you just dont have much of an option and even if you get offered big things later in the draft, you probably still have to keep the direction your deck was heading anyway, otherwise you just do everything and nothing.
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I would have to disagree Sinti with big minions being meta. It's all about tempo, value generation and comboing. If you have all of those in a draft you're typically going to do very well, if it's just big minions you have you will get destroyed. The top tier classes still have plenty of hard removal and board clear. A rogue will dumpster a card like Deranged Doctor, they still have Sap, Walk the Plank, Assassinate, Kidnapper, Unidentified Contract, Shadow Strike. My 11-12 win drafts had maybe 4-6 big minions.
Mage has Forbidden Flame, Meteor, Polymorph, Potion of Polymorph, Fireball, Flamestrike, not to mention the zillion of freeze spells they have to abuse your big mana commit. Blizzard, Ray of Frost, Cone of Cold, Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Freezing Potion.
Warlock has more board clears and removal more than ever. Blastcrystal Potion, Shadowflame, Siphon Soul, DOOM!, Twisting Nether, Felfire Potion, Hellfire.
Lots of removal still out there or ways to play around big minions.
Rafaam is a must be removed card. Even though it is RNG it is too strong for arena.
Yeah, locks can boardwipe. And then rogue fills board again. And again. And again. And then goes for a second evis - at 1-1 - for lethal. Locks are overrated, because 3 boardwipes mean nothing when even at low wins, people refill immediately. I'd hate to see what happens against someone at 5+ wins. Lack of healing contributes here; you've got mistress, travelling healer, and applebaum as main heals, with the odd thing like Siphon or similar, combined with lock boardwipes hurting your face. You have legendaries played in over 50% of games - and they're usually good ones, or at least with heavy synergy - Kel'thuzad, Geddon, Y'sharrj, and so on. Many of these demand a hard boardwipe or you lose immediately, and even then they've often got value already. A reactive gameplan just does not seem to work well against a lot of the tempo-ish rogue decks (and pure aggro often runs out of steam).
Mages get a lot of boardwipes and removal tools, but it's RNG as to what you'll actually get in the game half the time, because of the random spell generation - and the RNG in Arena is pretty annoying already, I'm finding, with evolves into Anton, power disparity between lackeys, and similar.
I'm not disagreeing with you - just pointing out that - in my experience - some of these things are heavily overrated. It often feels closer than it is, as well, with things like stabilization at sub-5HP - but if the aggro player's still at high health, the only thing is if the aggro player drafted/can produce (because blizz love random spell generation) reach. It's feeling like you have to have a near perfect draft, or you get run over by paladins with double BoK and double 3/2 that produces dragons, top-tier legendaries, and similar, if you're control, and if you're aggro, then half the time your draft options are so bad that you can't actually compete with a single taunt (and there's a fair few of them around).
It feels bad to go "Well, that's a decent deck, but it's 1-2 because legendaries and strong opponent decks" and be unable to improve on it, realistically - and don't forget we're still using buckets of "you will get X bad/utterly abysmal cards and you cannot change that".
Priest is definitely top tier. Went 12-2 with my first run, at 7-0 atm. They have pretty much every insane card they've ever had.
How are you succeeding in a controlling playstyle? All of priest's tools are, pretty much, not tempo gains, just good control tools, right? So don't you have a similar issue to lock, in that you get wrecked by tempo just going "whee, board refill every turn, because lackeys, draw, and other stuff!"? Or is the healing enough to pull you back? When I tried (unsurprisingly the arena deck's been lost by HA), I couldn't deal with top-end legendaries like KT/Y'sharrj, with mages popping out multiple charging 4/2s (or multiple Illidans), and similar. Not to mention that some tools - like potion of madness - are just made so useless by the metagame changes that they're not worth having - pretty much no targets for them. I just don't really see how the reactive, priest playstyle can work (unless we've got another metagame where I'm seeing completely different stuff to everyone else, a la WW).
I'm not a regular Arena player, but the new format had me interested. I got a free ticket off an unfinished run, that went 4-3. I think it was Warlock...
Then I drafted a deck for Rogue today, started 0-2 with a deck stacked with various card generation, combo cards, late game taunts... Was thinking I really suck at Arena! Then I went 12 straight wins for my first ever 12 win run! So I guess you could say I'm really happy with Arena right now!
https://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/93543a
Priest has best 3-drops and best 4-drops by far. Kabal talonpriest, Dark cultist, new 4-7 guy... these are insane. I play priest in a more midrang-y way (which always been a go-to way for priest, tbh. priest is my favorite class to play arena, even when he sucked). Just play big dudes, heal them and squeeze value from them. Supplement stat-efficient dudes with health buffs, northshire cleric, and you'll beat most of the stuff you can get in Arena.
One of my games: rogue turn 1 zombie chow, going first. What could be worse? Then, I disconnect... Then, I come back at turn 3 seeing that he played huckster. I just put that 4-7 dude via coin and we are even. Proceed with other ridiculously strong cards, while at the same time abusing hero power.
I don't think anything can beat a good (not great, just good) priest deck that draws well. Kabal Talonpriest is essentially 3/7 for 3. It would be a good 4-drop, but it is a 3-drop.
Also, dragonfire potion is nuts. But these are not too common.
Quite honestly, I view that as very worrisome. It's the nutty decks that go 1-2 which really ruins the format for me. Not when you queue into broken tripe regardless of your win level.
I did my first ROS 12 to day with rouge. Rouge seems OP, shaman is good, i tried priest also. I wasn't go less then 6-3 and it was 1 time. Rest my runs was 7-10 then 12 to day. For me there is no reason to play rankeds, arena is so cool now :D
Anything I've tried to do that hasn't been balls to the wall aggro has failed miserably. In part because legendaries are everywhere. Sure, I'll just beat that Y'sharrj... not. As is random evolve tripe (Random evolve into Anton, for example). I think the 4/7 should be good, but when I get one or two hard removal spells, I cannot beat random Geddons which finish off the board, random mages dropping in a khadgar and power of creation for 4 argent commanders, portal keeper RNG (literally one the next turn and two the turn after that), or a warrior going for 4 echo whirlwinds, double coin into a randomly generated mana cyclone. You just cannot beat that level of value, and that's what's happened, consistently, when I have tried to build anything that isn't aggro. Like the slower lock deck - wiped out by huge reach aggro decks, endless refill paladins with dragon producers, and similar. Dragonfire potion is decent, but not nuts - because people refill very, very fast, I find (oh, look, 8 mana, summon two illidans). Feels like you need to get a perfect curve for priest decks to be able to keep board until the lategame, at which game you, uhh, hope to not get wrecked by legendaries?
And yes, all of those situations are ones I've seen since the start of RoS. If Arena wasn't the best route for gold->packs, even with going 1-3 in half my drafts (had two 1-3s, a 2-3, and a 10-3; the first was partly down to overpicking what turned out to be a bad card. The other bad ones were attempts at slower decks - the 10 was a solid hunter, that still hit 5-2), I'd not bother at all. It feels crappy going "well, that was a decent deck, with multiple wipes, multiple hard removals, and some topend for once, but only one win!"
Looks like you got hit by a bad luck spree, tbh. Or I got hit by a good luck ;)
Things you describe would make me quit Arena I think. However in my games, honestly, I feel sorry for my opponent. Probably feels really bad to play against such a priest deck.
My current deck is:
Holy Smite
Northshire Cleric
Amani Berserker
Crazed Alchemist
EVIL Conscripter x 2
River Crocolisk
Dark Cultist
Faceless Rager
Hired Gun
Kabal Talonpriest
Shadow Word: Death
Thoughtsteal
Hench-Clan Shadequill x 4
Hozen Healer
Proud Defender
Swift Messenger
Corrupted Healbot
Darkshire Alchemist x 2
Kabal Songstealer x 2
Quartz Elemental
Dragonfire Potion
Holy Fire
Bog Creeper
Deranged Doctor
9-0 so far.
Edit: ended up 12-1. Lost once due to terrible draw (only 2-drop was crazed alchemist and then I had a 5-drop Quartz Elemental against a token druid).
That's why you take cards like Messenger Raven and lackeys whenever possible they offer value and a 2nd way to get powerful cards.
Warlock is not underrated but it's defiantly the class that gets underrated the most. Also board clears at the right time wins you games, it's no different then a well timed Flamestrike. You can consistency punish over committing which lots of players do all the time.
If you're consistently getting 1-4 wins it's because of your own skill and game play, making mistakes and not realizing them.
My first impression is that arena is absolute garbage right now.
Some cards are just stupid broken with etarded rng effects like the potions and lackeys.
The current format doesn't reward the better player very much. Hopefully this will be fixed when they adjust the buckets.
I need to stop seeing this card so fuckin much :D
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I haven't seen one yet.
Instead I see rogues with 4+ EVIL Miscreant. The most stupid card ever printed for Arena.
The first 1-3 was due to bad picks - expecting the burglar to be good, when in fact it's basically just a 4 mana 4/3 because the choices are that bad (rarely had anything I could cast from them), expecting the 2 mana 2/3 that gets buffed to be more than vanilla most of the time with 6+ activators, stuff like that (though also misplays due to not reading the cards sometimes, the deck was simply outclassed). The 2-3 and 1-3 were basically decent-good control decks that got wrecked by legendaries, a bad metagame for control, and RNG. Yes, there will have been misplays, but some plays are pretty unbeatable, like Khadgar into summon two copies of a 6-drop (a single card that basically demands a boardwipe all by itself if on a vaguely empty board, even alone), or mages getting evolves into Anton and multiple fireballs.
Even with good play those two controllish decks could not have gone above 3 wins, IMHO. No real point me aiming for slow, reactive decks, because I can't get them to work when stupid value legendaries wreck things - which, to try and stay on topic, is my argument. So many legendaries, so much of an issue controlling past good ones. Also a grumble about the lack of healing for locks, with all the self-harm AEs.
This run is shafted, because I'm too slow, as a Hunter. Can't beat board refills every turn for multiple turns (thanks, Twinspells!), which get buffed. If it says Twinspell, it's probably overpowered (not sure on the mage one, but oth druid ones and the 6 mana hunter one are ridiculous).