I came back to Hearthstone a couple of weeks ago, having previously played for a month or two at launch. The Arena has always been my favourite part of Hearthstone and, while I wouldn’t say I’m particularly good at it, I’m hoping that practice will fix that.
I would also really like feedback on my drafting, suggestions on how the deck might play and predictions of how well I will do, but I’m conscious that making a new thread for each draft will just clutter up the forum. Instead of that I’m going to keep everything to this thread, posting each draft as I make it and reporting back on the results.
I don’t have huge amounts of time to play Hearthstone, so I’m not going to be rattling off a couple of arenas per day or anything like that: two or three a week is probably more likely. Any feedback and advice that you can offer will be gratefully received.
I wasn't particularly happy to be given the choice of Hunter, Druid or Warlock, as I don't have much experience of any of those classes and have two Paladin dailies in my log. Druid was the one I felt least uncomfortable with, so Druid I was.
The draft seems rather so-so: there are some good early minions in there and a decent amount of card draw, but nothing really stands out and the average tier score is only 60.1. My most recent experience of Druid in arena was a petty disastrous 1-3 draft, but this one seems a bit better, so I' hoping to get a little further this time.
I won't be playing this draft until this evening at the earliest, but will let you know how I get on.
Thanks for the feedback. There were a few picks that I was really torn on and I think you picked them all out :)
#6 - If this had been later in the draft I'd probably have gone for Ravenholdt, too, given how many low cost minions I ended up getting. This early on I still felt inclined to go purely by Hearth Arena's recommendation, but I can see it being difficult to find a time to drop the bomber where he won't cause me more damage than my opponent.
#7 - I was concerned that I wouldn't get enough beasts to give me a reasonable chance of activating the druid. I was, of course, missing out on the fact that Power of the Wild is effectively a beast, if I want it to be.
#8 - I was very close to picking the raptor, but was swayed by Hearth Arena's recommendation in the end.
#20 - I have a horrible habit of forgetting that Wild Pyro is actually a very decent two drop in it's own right, even without the text, and was concerned that I either wouldn't be able to activate it due to a relatively low number of spells or wouldn't want to activate it given my large number of low health minions. Something for me to remember in future drafts.
#30 - I've never used Gnomish Experimenter and the downside in a minion heavy / spell light deck just seems too great. The balance of probabilities is that it will "chickenize" a minion rather than giving me a spell. Am I missing something?
I decided to recreate my arena draft and test it out against the expert AI. It's not encouraging that I keep getting torn apart against mage.
Oh god. first game was an absolute shambles against a shaman. He had a stormforged in his opening hand and, while I had a decent opening curve, his was much, much better. Great minions to play on each turn and i ended up conceding by turn 8 when it was clear that I hadn't the slightest chance of getting into the game. Barely even worth playing any minions each turn as he had more than enough board control to clear them efficiently.
I can only hope that things improve, but I'm not hopeful.
Thanks for the offer. I'm just going to plow on and see how it goes. Just won the second match against a Pally that got off to a very slow start and seemed fairly new to the game. An easy win in the end, but I think he could have beaten me if he'd used his cards properly.
Third game was an unlikely win against a mage. I was startng to lose control of the board, but managed to stabilse things a bit thanks to my ironbark and got his health down low. I rushed things a bit and accidentally attacked his earthen ring farseer instead of his water elemental (the minions were re-arranging after I had killed one and I mis-clicked), leaving me with my full health ironbark and an azure drake on the board versus his elemental. He was on 12 health. As expected, he crashed his elemental into my ironbark, stopping lethal by freezing it> My turn came and what do I top-deck? Wailing Soul. Silence the freeze off my ironbark and smash his face. I don't suppose he was very happy.
Fifth and final match was against a mage. They had a pretty good deck, including at least one flamestrike and two fireballs and a lot of decent minions, Highlights were an Enhance-o Mechano giving all four of his minions windfury, alowing him to smack my face up and kill my minions, then the double fireball finisher.
I'm afraid I'm still not sold on druid :P
Even the pack turned out to be rubbish - four commons that I already have two of and Metaltooth Leaper.
I'm back after last night's disappointment and this time I had the choice of a class I'm a bit more comfortable with. All in all it feels like a pretty decent deck, but some of the picks were agonising, giving me the choice of two or more excellent cards at the same time, forcing me to turn down some gems.
Pick #7 - I think is really close between the Darkscale Healer and Tinkertown Technician. The Healer is definitely the stronger card, and it is a risk to give up the power to take the Technician (since the technician may just be a 3/3) but a vanilla 3/3 is a relatively low downside, and as a 3-mana/turn three 4/4 the card has one of the best upsides. If this was pick 2 or 3 I would have definitely taken the Tinkertown Technician, if it was pick 20 (with no mechs) I would have definitely taken the healer. At pick 7, I think it is in the "grey area" where it is close enough to consider either one, depending on your risk/reward tolerance (if you need to take risks, this is a good place to; if you need to avoid risks, you don't take it).
Pick #8 - I like the Noble Sacrifice over the Hand of Protection here. Noble Sacrifice is really good when your opponent gets a strong start, and activates when your opponent has the initiative (so you are more likely to be losing). Hand of Protection is only really good when you are attacking, which means that the game is either fairly close or you are already winning. In the mid-late game and when the game is close, the Hand is slightly better; but it is really important to pick up cards to keep from getting steamrolled by strong starts, and to cut your opponent off from steamrolling you after one or two favorable trades. Total disclosure; I have picked up a lot of wins with Rouge against much better decks off of Backstab/Deadly Poison/Goblin Auto-Barber so I tend to be more weary of steamroll starts.
Pick #11 - Definitely Direwolf here. Blackwing Technician has below average stats for a three drop (there isn't much dragon synergy in the arena, so you are unlikely to get another one in addition to the Hungry Dragon) and the Direwolf works really well with your hero power, in addition to allowing your other minions to trade up.
Pick #23 - I like the Spellbreaker over the Hammer of Wrath. I typically find that the extra card from Hammer of Wrath isn't worth spending four mana for just three damage (meaning the loss of tempo typically forces worse trades, which offset any card advantage). I also generally find that paladin decks get overloaded at the four drop slot (this will be your fourth, and I generally like to play 5 or 6), so I rate four drops that are likely to get better later in the game higher (since I won't be able to play them all on turn 4). I also generally find good targets for silence effects, and there aren't any paladin class cards that provide them.
Pick #30 - Aldor Peacekeeper over Equality. The Peacekeeper is such a huge tempo swing turn 3 that it can easily allow you to snowball, and it provides so much value when it hits your opponent's big drops that you can often take them out without spending any other cards (and you still get a 3/3). There a very few cards that are universally good in both the early game and late game; when you are winning and when you are losing, that the value of having a card that is always "live" is huge (since you always have a play). As good as Equality is, it is a much more narrow card.
Overall, I think the deck is a bit short on two drops and I think it is going to have to catch up during the midgame (although it has the tools to). I expect your losses will come from decks that get off to a good start, and either have some kind of reach or a few good removal spells. I guess this deck will get 7 wins, but won't be surprised if it gets 8 or 9.
Thanks very much for the feedback, both of you. Picks 18, 20 and 30 were proobably the most painful for me, particularly the last one. I love Aldor Peacekeeper but, having passed up an Equality earlier I just felt I needed to take the second right at the end.
I'm hoping that I won't get punished too much for the weakness in two drops, since this feels like a good draft, otherwise.
First Match was against a druid and absurdly easy. I got off to a reasonably slow start, but he didn't have the cards to really make me pay. He then seemed to lose connection for three turns or so and came back in time to see me set up for lethal. I got the impression that he was relatively inexperienced as he made a couple of misplays and gave me a nice boost by dropping arcane golem on turn 4.
Second match: A close fought defeat against a warlock. He had a good deck with two Power Overwhelming, two Imp-losion, Anima Golem and a couple of Demonfire and got off to a strong start with mechwarper and spider tank on turns one and two. Managed to take it to a top deck war, but I couldn't quite make it to a win.
Third match: A straightforward victory against a mage. I got off to a very strong start and they didn't really have anything to play until turn three or four.
Fifth match: A fellow pally who got off to an insane start with Argent Squire, coin Muster for Battle, Blood Knight buffed to 6/6. Absolutely no way back from that for me and I was dead by turn five.
Match six: Another Paladin (maybe even the same one), another ridiculous loss. This time it was an out of control questing adventurer of all things. I could probably have played it better if I had the match again.
Really frustrated by this run, as it was a good deck, but I massively under-achieved. Sickening, but it's all useful experience.
Two runs down and two disappointing performances, but I won't be put off. The choices this time were Druid, Warlock and Priest. I didn't feel like trying druid again, following my last dismal attempt and Warlock is a mystery to me, so Priest it was. It helped that I have a 60 gold priest quest to complete (provided I can actually manage five wins).
The draft seems pretty decent to me and I've actually gone entirely with Hearth Arena's recommendations for once. Two Temple Enforcer and three Dark Cultist can't be bad, but it does feel like I'm a little weak at the start again. My options on turn three are pretty potent, however.
It would have been nice to have the odd Velen's Chosen or Shadow Word: Death, but an average tier score of 70.1 is better than I've seen in any of my recent attempts.
As always, please feel free to provide some feedback and advice. With a bit of luck I'll be playing this draft this evening.
I'd say your early game is actually exactly what you need : just enough one and two-drops to buy time for your powerful curve to kick in. You have numerous early ways to deal with the ever-popular 3/2s, with one or two tricks. Your late game is nice, but lacks hard removal (Shadow Word: Death or Mind Control). You'll have to push through with what you have, which should be enough, but be wary of decks with plenty of removal that can clear all your threats.
Resist the urge to use it early, and try to save your Shadow Word: Pain for problematic low-attack minions (Water Elemental, Fen Creeper, ) Your midgame minions can eat early drops all day, and you can heal, so you can let 2/3 minions or the like live a little longer.
Thanks very much for the advice. I'm hopeful that I'll put in a decent performance with this deck, but then again I thought that about my last Pally deck and it didn't quite work out that way... A shame, since it was a nice deck to play when I got the chance to go more than a few turns.
Really enjoying this thread, especially since I often question many of my Arena choices also.
I consider myself a lower-than-average Arena player, mostly because I like having certain kinds of constructed decks.
The interesting thing about Arena is that it kind of FORCES you to learn all of the cards in all areas and consider alternate choices.
Your Priest Arena deck looks pretty solid, despite not having a lot of singular cards like Velen's Chosen, Lightwell or Lightspawn. But that is just the luck of the draw, LOL.
Props to you, Seqenere, for starting this thread.
Will watch with interest to see how your latest run goes, particularly as Priest is my favorite class.
With the paladin deck in the last 2 games, a silence or peacekeeper would have made a big difference. Questing can't run rampant if silenced. And a 1/6 Bloodknight is no problem to deal with ;) Silence is just a strong tool i don't like to miss it in a arena deck. Aldor Peacekeeper is one of the strongest paladin cards especially if you already have Stampeding Kodo.
Yes, it would have been good to have the Aldor to hand in the fifth match, although the equality did do some good work for me in previous matches. Being able to clear a couple of fat minions with Silver Hand Recruit is always satisfying. It was frustrating not to be able to at least pop the Argent Squire's shield, but I had no two drop and he cleared my Silver Hand Recruit with the weapon from muster.
The Questing Adventurer was pretty harsh. I couldn't clear him on turn two, but was crossing my fingers and hoping that he wouldn't be able to play many cards on turn three. Sadly, with the coin, he managed three or four! Looking back I can't work out just how he managed that, but I'm sure the Adventurer was a 6/6 by turn 4.
Thanks for the feedback. I was tempted by Force-Tank MAX a couple of times, but ended up being dissuaded by Hearth Arena. I think that and perhaps some of the other picks, come down to my lack of experience with Priest and therefore lack of confidence to go against HA's recommendation.
Given my recent performances I'd be pretty happy with 6-3.
I like your choices. The only one I might have challenged HearthArena a little on would be Pick #8:Force-Tank MAX.
As to Pick #2, I understand why going with Thoughtsteal isn't bad. It helps you to one-up almost every other class in the early game should you not have a low-mana drop, though I could see being tempted by War Golem. ;)
I wondered a little about Pick #16 also, but frankly, Shrinkmeister isn't worth that much unless you have synergy with low-target removal cards such as Shadow Word: Pain, which you don't have anyway, so going for Holy Nova should be OK.
You should do well with this deck. Looking forward to your Arena run results. :)
Well, I am a huge fan of Shrinkmeister, but I might have picked the Holy Nova over it. Both have their upsides and downsides.
Shrinkmeister requires board presence to be played optimally - it is the Argent Protector of Priests, enabling crushing openings which snowball and force the opponent to play on the back foot. All in all, an excellent card for a proactive deck.
Holy Nova might be clunky at times, but it still is a one-sided AoE spell with potential upside. It is one of the few ways Priests can come back against opponents swarming the board. All in all, an excellent card for reactive decks.
On the other choices - I don't much like Thoughtsteal, so I might have picked the War Golem as others have said - but both picks are decent, I believe. Force-Tank MAX sometimes is a worse Golem (vs. opponents who can clear the shield easily) or backbreaking... but at 8 crystals, it better be. I agree with your pick there, but I can see why others would have picked the Tank. (That said, if you had picked the Golem, then picking the Tank would have been most likely overkill on late-dame drops).
I find that I have a tendency to disregard cards base stats if I don't think their text will help me but that isn't right. As Demonocrat says a 3/2 for 2 is pretty much as good as you get without having some downside attached to it. Sure the -2 can be used in useful in fun combos but even if you don't use it for a combo the 3/2 for 2 bodies is still solid. Another consideration is that you don't have to get fancy with Shrinking a big minon and then using Shadow Word pain to kill them or taking control of them with a Cabal Shadow Priest or Shadow Madness. Simple making a 2/2 a 0/2 so you can swing into it with your turn one drop and kill it without it dying is a positive outcome and a good use of the shrink.
I came back to Hearthstone a couple of weeks ago, having previously played for a month or two at launch. The Arena has always been my favourite part of Hearthstone and, while I wouldn’t say I’m particularly good at it, I’m hoping that practice will fix that.
I would also really like feedback on my drafting, suggestions on how the deck might play and predictions of how well I will do, but I’m conscious that making a new thread for each draft will just clutter up the forum. Instead of that I’m going to keep everything to this thread, posting each draft as I make it and reporting back on the results.
I don’t have huge amounts of time to play Hearthstone, so I’m not going to be rattling off a couple of arenas per day or anything like that: two or three a week is probably more likely. Any feedback and advice that you can offer will be gratefully received.
Now, to kick things off, here’s…
Arena 1 – Druid
http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/5k131l
I wasn't particularly happy to be given the choice of Hunter, Druid or Warlock, as I don't have much experience of any of those classes and have two Paladin dailies in my log. Druid was the one I felt least uncomfortable with, so Druid I was.
The draft seems rather so-so: there are some good early minions in there and a decent amount of card draw, but nothing really stands out and the average tier score is only 60.1. My most recent experience of Druid in arena was a petty disastrous 1-3 draft, but this one seems a bit better, so I' hoping to get a little further this time.
I won't be playing this draft until this evening at the earliest, but will let you know how I get on.
Thanks for the feedback. There were a few picks that I was really torn on and I think you picked them all out :)
#6 - If this had been later in the draft I'd probably have gone for Ravenholdt, too, given how many low cost minions I ended up getting. This early on I still felt inclined to go purely by Hearth Arena's recommendation, but I can see it being difficult to find a time to drop the bomber where he won't cause me more damage than my opponent.
#7 - I was concerned that I wouldn't get enough beasts to give me a reasonable chance of activating the druid. I was, of course, missing out on the fact that Power of the Wild is effectively a beast, if I want it to be.
#8 - I was very close to picking the raptor, but was swayed by Hearth Arena's recommendation in the end.
#20 - I have a horrible habit of forgetting that Wild Pyro is actually a very decent two drop in it's own right, even without the text, and was concerned that I either wouldn't be able to activate it due to a relatively low number of spells or wouldn't want to activate it given my large number of low health minions. Something for me to remember in future drafts.
#30 - I've never used Gnomish Experimenter and the downside in a minion heavy / spell light deck just seems too great. The balance of probabilities is that it will "chickenize" a minion rather than giving me a spell. Am I missing something?
I decided to recreate my arena draft and test it out against the expert AI. It's not encouraging that I keep getting torn apart against mage.
Oh god. first game was an absolute shambles against a shaman. He had a stormforged in his opening hand and, while I had a decent opening curve, his was much, much better. Great minions to play on each turn and i ended up conceding by turn 8 when it was clear that I hadn't the slightest chance of getting into the game. Barely even worth playing any minions each turn as he had more than enough board control to clear them efficiently.
I can only hope that things improve, but I'm not hopeful.
Thanks for the offer. I'm just going to plow on and see how it goes. Just won the second match against a Pally that got off to a very slow start and seemed fairly new to the game. An easy win in the end, but I think he could have beaten me if he'd used his cards properly.
Third game was an unlikely win against a mage. I was startng to lose control of the board, but managed to stabilse things a bit thanks to my ironbark and got his health down low. I rushed things a bit and accidentally attacked his earthen ring farseer instead of his water elemental (the minions were re-arranging after I had killed one and I mis-clicked), leaving me with my full health ironbark and an azure drake on the board versus his elemental. He was on 12 health. As expected, he crashed his elemental into my ironbark, stopping lethal by freezing it> My turn came and what do I top-deck? Wailing Soul. Silence the freeze off my ironbark and smash his face. I don't suppose he was very happy.
Ugh! Fourth match was against a warrior with win-axe in his opening hand, two Frothing Berserker, 2 Whirlwind, 2 Axe Flinger, Dark Iron Dwarf and Execute. Not a chance.
Fifth and final match was against a mage. They had a pretty good deck, including at least one flamestrike and two fireballs and a lot of decent minions, Highlights were an Enhance-o Mechano giving all four of his minions windfury, alowing him to smack my face up and kill my minions, then the double fireball finisher.
I'm afraid I'm still not sold on druid :P
Even the pack turned out to be rubbish - four commons that I already have two of and Metaltooth Leaper.
Arena 2 - Paladin
http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/7svzch
I'm back after last night's disappointment and this time I had the choice of a class I'm a bit more comfortable with. All in all it feels like a pretty decent deck, but some of the picks were agonising, giving me the choice of two or more excellent cards at the same time, forcing me to turn down some gems.
My early game is a little limited, which worries me slightly, but 2 x Truesilver Champion and 1 x Sword of Justice, Muster for Battle, Consecration, Equality and Avenging Wrath should give me more ways than usual to get back into a game when I'm behind.
As before, I'd love some feedback on the picks and deck.
Pick #7 - I think is really close between the Darkscale Healer and Tinkertown Technician. The Healer is definitely the stronger card, and it is a risk to give up the power to take the Technician (since the technician may just be a 3/3) but a vanilla 3/3 is a relatively low downside, and as a 3-mana/turn three 4/4 the card has one of the best upsides. If this was pick 2 or 3 I would have definitely taken the Tinkertown Technician, if it was pick 20 (with no mechs) I would have definitely taken the healer. At pick 7, I think it is in the "grey area" where it is close enough to consider either one, depending on your risk/reward tolerance (if you need to take risks, this is a good place to; if you need to avoid risks, you don't take it).
Pick #8 - I like the Noble Sacrifice over the Hand of Protection here. Noble Sacrifice is really good when your opponent gets a strong start, and activates when your opponent has the initiative (so you are more likely to be losing). Hand of Protection is only really good when you are attacking, which means that the game is either fairly close or you are already winning. In the mid-late game and when the game is close, the Hand is slightly better; but it is really important to pick up cards to keep from getting steamrolled by strong starts, and to cut your opponent off from steamrolling you after one or two favorable trades. Total disclosure; I have picked up a lot of wins with Rouge against much better decks off of Backstab/Deadly Poison/Goblin Auto-Barber so I tend to be more weary of steamroll starts.
Pick #11 - Definitely Direwolf here. Blackwing Technician has below average stats for a three drop (there isn't much dragon synergy in the arena, so you are unlikely to get another one in addition to the Hungry Dragon) and the Direwolf works really well with your hero power, in addition to allowing your other minions to trade up.
Pick #23 - I like the Spellbreaker over the Hammer of Wrath. I typically find that the extra card from Hammer of Wrath isn't worth spending four mana for just three damage (meaning the loss of tempo typically forces worse trades, which offset any card advantage). I also generally find that paladin decks get overloaded at the four drop slot (this will be your fourth, and I generally like to play 5 or 6), so I rate four drops that are likely to get better later in the game higher (since I won't be able to play them all on turn 4). I also generally find good targets for silence effects, and there aren't any paladin class cards that provide them.
Pick #30 - Aldor Peacekeeper over Equality. The Peacekeeper is such a huge tempo swing turn 3 that it can easily allow you to snowball, and it provides so much value when it hits your opponent's big drops that you can often take them out without spending any other cards (and you still get a 3/3). There a very few cards that are universally good in both the early game and late game; when you are winning and when you are losing, that the value of having a card that is always "live" is huge (since you always have a play). As good as Equality is, it is a much more narrow card.
Overall, I think the deck is a bit short on two drops and I think it is going to have to catch up during the midgame (although it has the tools to). I expect your losses will come from decks that get off to a good start, and either have some kind of reach or a few good removal spells. I guess this deck will get 7 wins, but won't be surprised if it gets 8 or 9.
Thanks very much for the feedback, both of you. Picks 18, 20 and 30 were proobably the most painful for me, particularly the last one. I love Aldor Peacekeeper but, having passed up an Equality earlier I just felt I needed to take the second right at the end.
I'm hoping that I won't get punished too much for the weakness in two drops, since this feels like a good draft, otherwise.
First Match was against a druid and absurdly easy. I got off to a reasonably slow start, but he didn't have the cards to really make me pay. He then seemed to lose connection for three turns or so and came back in time to see me set up for lethal. I got the impression that he was relatively inexperienced as he made a couple of misplays and gave me a nice boost by dropping arcane golem on turn 4.
Second match: A close fought defeat against a warlock. He had a good deck with two Power Overwhelming, two Imp-losion, Anima Golem and a couple of Demonfire and got off to a strong start with mechwarper and spider tank on turns one and two. Managed to take it to a top deck war, but I couldn't quite make it to a win.
Third match: A straightforward victory against a mage. I got off to a very strong start and they didn't really have anything to play until turn three or four.
Fourth match: Priest. Ended up being relatively easy, despite an early scare with a Deathlord buffed with Velen's Chosen and Power Word: Shield.
Fifth match: A fellow pally who got off to an insane start with Argent Squire, coin Muster for Battle, Blood Knight buffed to 6/6. Absolutely no way back from that for me and I was dead by turn five.
Match six: Another Paladin (maybe even the same one), another ridiculous loss. This time it was an out of control questing adventurer of all things. I could probably have played it better if I had the match again.
Really frustrated by this run, as it was a good deck, but I massively under-achieved. Sickening, but it's all useful experience.
Arena 3 - Priest
http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/3u1t1d
Two runs down and two disappointing performances, but I won't be put off. The choices this time were Druid, Warlock and Priest. I didn't feel like trying druid again, following my last dismal attempt and Warlock is a mystery to me, so Priest it was. It helped that I have a 60 gold priest quest to complete (provided I can actually manage five wins).
The draft seems pretty decent to me and I've actually gone entirely with Hearth Arena's recommendations for once. Two Temple Enforcer and three Dark Cultist can't be bad, but it does feel like I'm a little weak at the start again. My options on turn three are pretty potent, however.
It would have been nice to have the odd Velen's Chosen or Shadow Word: Death, but an average tier score of 70.1 is better than I've seen in any of my recent attempts.
As always, please feel free to provide some feedback and advice. With a bit of luck I'll be playing this draft this evening.
I'd say your early game is actually exactly what you need : just enough one and two-drops to buy time for your powerful curve to kick in. You have numerous early ways to deal with the ever-popular 3/2s, with one or two tricks. Your late game is nice, but lacks hard removal (Shadow Word: Death or Mind Control). You'll have to push through with what you have, which should be enough, but be wary of decks with plenty of removal that can clear all your threats.
Resist the urge to use it early, and try to save your Shadow Word: Pain for problematic low-attack minions (Water Elemental, Fen Creeper, ) Your midgame minions can eat early drops all day, and you can heal, so you can let 2/3 minions or the like live a little longer.
Thanks very much for the advice. I'm hopeful that I'll put in a decent performance with this deck, but then again I thought that about my last Pally deck and it didn't quite work out that way... A shame, since it was a nice deck to play when I got the chance to go more than a few turns.
Really enjoying this thread, especially since I often question many of my Arena choices also.
I consider myself a lower-than-average Arena player, mostly because I like having certain kinds of constructed decks.
The interesting thing about Arena is that it kind of FORCES you to learn all of the cards in all areas and consider alternate choices.
Your Priest Arena deck looks pretty solid, despite not having a lot of singular cards like Velen's Chosen, Lightwell or Lightspawn. But that is just the luck of the draw, LOL.
Props to you, Seqenere, for starting this thread.
Will watch with interest to see how your latest run goes, particularly as Priest is my favorite class.
Cheers!
-mjsottawa
-mjsottawa (TACStrike#1833 on Battle.Net)
Thanks and glad you're enjoying it. I did get one Lightspawn offered to me, but a second Dark Cultist looked more appealing.
I want to +1 your choice of bloodsail corsair. The truesilver is ever present and with no ooze the corsair is ok.
The gnimish is a 3/2 for 3 with draw. Had the chicken cost 0 I would have picked more often.
Yes, it would have been good to have the Aldor to hand in the fifth match, although the equality did do some good work for me in previous matches. Being able to clear a couple of fat minions with Silver Hand Recruit is always satisfying. It was frustrating not to be able to at least pop the Argent Squire's shield, but I had no two drop and he cleared my Silver Hand Recruit with the weapon from muster.
The Questing Adventurer was pretty harsh. I couldn't clear him on turn two, but was crossing my fingers and hoping that he wouldn't be able to play many cards on turn three. Sadly, with the coin, he managed three or four! Looking back I can't work out just how he managed that, but I'm sure the Adventurer was a 6/6 by turn 4.
Thanks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a bit of luck this time.
Thanks for the feedback. I was tempted by Force-Tank MAX a couple of times, but ended up being dissuaded by Hearth Arena. I think that and perhaps some of the other picks, come down to my lack of experience with Priest and therefore lack of confidence to go against HA's recommendation.
Given my recent performances I'd be pretty happy with 6-3.
Hey Seqenere:
I like your choices. The only one I might have challenged HearthArena a little on would be Pick #8: Force-Tank MAX.
As to Pick #2, I understand why going with Thoughtsteal isn't bad. It helps you to one-up almost every other class in the early game should you not have a low-mana drop, though I could see being tempted by War Golem. ;)
I wondered a little about Pick #16 also, but frankly, Shrinkmeister isn't worth that much unless you have synergy with low-target removal cards such as Shadow Word: Pain, which you don't have anyway, so going for Holy Nova should be OK.
You should do well with this deck. Looking forward to your Arena run results. :)
-mjsottawa
-mjsottawa (TACStrike#1833 on Battle.Net)
Well, I am a huge fan of Shrinkmeister, but I might have picked the Holy Nova over it. Both have their upsides and downsides.
Shrinkmeister requires board presence to be played optimally - it is the Argent Protector of Priests, enabling crushing openings which snowball and force the opponent to play on the back foot. All in all, an excellent card for a proactive deck.
Holy Nova might be clunky at times, but it still is a one-sided AoE spell with potential upside. It is one of the few ways Priests can come back against opponents swarming the board. All in all, an excellent card for reactive decks.
On the other choices - I don't much like Thoughtsteal, so I might have picked the War Golem as others have said - but both picks are decent, I believe. Force-Tank MAX sometimes is a worse Golem (vs. opponents who can clear the shield easily) or backbreaking... but at 8 crystals, it better be. I agree with your pick there, but I can see why others would have picked the Tank. (That said, if you had picked the Golem, then picking the Tank would have been most likely overkill on late-dame drops).
I find that I have a tendency to disregard cards base stats if I don't think their text will help me but that isn't right. As Demonocrat says a 3/2 for 2 is pretty much as good as you get without having some downside attached to it. Sure the -2 can be used in useful in fun combos but even if you don't use it for a combo the 3/2 for 2 bodies is still solid. Another consideration is that you don't have to get fancy with Shrinking a big minon and then using Shadow Word pain to kill them or taking control of them with a Cabal Shadow Priest or Shadow Madness. Simple making a 2/2 a 0/2 so you can swing into it with your turn one drop and kill it without it dying is a positive outcome and a good use of the shrink.