So far I've been playing Discardlock for the past week using Thijz's built. I tried a few modification here and there to test it further. The deck is doing fine. Not great, just fine. I've been getting 50/50 win rate and it feels like a coin toss.
The new Rastakhan Warlock cards does help the archetype with the selective discard. High Priestess Jeklik and Soulwarden are awesome, if you get them at the right time. Sometimes, I end up discarding both my Soulwarden and never getting High Priestess Jeklik in hand.
In addition, this archetype not only invest in discarding cards but losing a lot of health too. To have cards to discard, you need to tap. Hence, you are actually investing in discarding a card and losing some health. Overall, there's more net loss than gain. Unlike the other Warlock mechanics such as deal damage to self/minion or destroy a minion, will have some form of a return in the later part of the game. Such as Lesser Amethyst Spellstone or Dark Pact.
With that in mind, these are the cards I've made. Let me know your thoughts and feedback on the cards. I will update accordingly. Thanks for taking a look! ^_^
The cards you have aren't too bad, but really the only one I can see being realistically played is the 2/2 apprentice. I think right now, discardlock is in a good spot, especially with its flexibility due to the quest no longer being the ONLY game plan. And with most archetypes in HS, you don't go all in with Discard cards, you only pull the most efficient ones. I've seen plenty of decklists that make use of a "discard package" with Soulfire, Soulwarden, Shriek, High Priestess Jeklik, and The Soularium.
Even then, it wouldn't take too many more cards to go all in on a Discard Warlock and not take it into a trash tier, certainly, it won't be a tier 1 if you mostly just stack discard cards, but the archetype is definitely in a good spot IMO.
As far as a review goes, let me throw down my initial thoughts on these cards.
1.) Warlock Apprentice - 7.5/10. Very simple mechanics, good for a reload in discardlock. However, the drawback being if you pull this card back from Soulwarden or similar effects you're probably gonna be disappointed. Overall good design, could actually see this making it into the game because it has solid strengths and weaknesses.
2.) Cruel Caster - 5.5/10. Very Vanilla stats and Battlecry. I can see the idea for the deathrattle warranting 2 discards, but I think realistically the variance of discarding 2 spells and getting no return is very painful along with a mediocre body. One of the things a lot of these discard minions benefit from is the fact that discarding is usually a net negative and thus gives room to create pretty solid statlines to compensate. This minion doesn't have it. On the flip side, there is also a very abusive high-end case, where you play this as your second to the last card while holding Deathwing or something similarly monstrous, which is not hard to orchestrate as a discardlock. As it stands, this card will either be heavily abused or not played at all, either not being very good for the game itself.
3.) Desperate Lifesteal - 3/10. Very interesting idea, but super situational to ever pull off. To get this card to work the way you want, you have to fulfill too many conditions; Have more cards than your opponent, have enough attack power on the board to heal up, have 5 or more mana, and be willing to potentially trade your board away to get your life back up. It's expensive, but necessarily so, but so situational that I don't see this ever being put intentionally into a deck, which isn't a bad thing, because generating this card somehow at the right time could be very clutch, and because of being super conditional, wouldn't really be that upsetting seeing an opponent pull off this play. I rated it a little lower than I probably would without context of discardlock, simply because theme wise I don't see how this connects too much with discardlock specifically.
4.) Fel Elf - 6/10. Super powerful, simple designed card. This card I think would break Hearthstone and cause discardlock to implode once again. Why? Because the one thing holding discardlock back before was that discarded cards were permanently gone from that match. That's why Soulwarden now is considered such a good card, it turned dead cards into a pool that warlocks pull from now. It works because of the high cost of the minion means Discardlock isn't going to steamroll early game with high rolls. This card along with Soulwarden simply gives WAY too much power to the discard mechanic and would make it broken. I gave it a good rating, because in context, and without Soulwarden this card would BE the thing to bring discardlock back.
5.) Gorishi Grub - 4/10. I originally was gonna give this like a 2/3, but as I started writing this, I remembered Shriek and Reckless Diretroll. This card would be a good way to start swinging the archetype into a more aggro/midrange way, or atleast allow that possibility. However, even at the end, after using this buffer those last cards, you're just left with a 1/2 without much synergy. Overall, I would probably not consider as my first pick in a low-cost discardlock, but if it had enough support I'd probably put it in as a 2nd or 3rd round slot.
6.) Imp's Scroll - 5/10. Again another weak card I would rate lower, but this combo'd with Catacylsm would actually be pretty cool. In every other situation I can think of, this is a very weak card for the slot in your deck and even with the combo above, the cards individually aren't that strong and would lead to a very incosistent deck IMO. I'm not sure how I'd change this card for the better, as design wise it's probably locked into it's best version now.
So far I've been playing Discardlock for the past week using Thijz's built. I tried a few modification here and there to test it further. The deck is doing fine. Not great, just fine. I've been getting 50/50 win rate and it feels like a coin toss.
The new Rastakhan Warlock cards does help the archetype with the selective discard. High Priestess Jeklik and Soulwarden are awesome, if you get them at the right time. Sometimes, I end up discarding both my Soulwarden and never getting High Priestess Jeklik in hand.
In addition, this archetype not only invest in discarding cards but losing a lot of health too. To have cards to discard, you need to tap. Hence, you are actually investing in discarding a card and losing some health. Overall, there's more net loss than gain. Unlike the other Warlock mechanics such as deal damage to self/minion or destroy a minion, will have some form of a return in the later part of the game. Such as Lesser Amethyst Spellstone or Dark Pact.
With that in mind, these are the cards I've made. Let me know your thoughts and feedback on the cards. I will update accordingly. Thanks for taking a look! ^_^
Custom Discard Cards: https://imgur.com/gallery/SevZz8q
JagBone's Wild Adventures! 3 Videos Per Week. Fun, wacky Wild decks and plays!
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JagBone's Wild Adventures! 3 Videos Per Week. Fun, wacky Wild decks and plays!
Follow me on Social Media:
YouTube: JagBone| Twitter: JagBone | Instagram: JagBone | Video Thread: JagBone
The cards you have aren't too bad, but really the only one I can see being realistically played is the 2/2 apprentice. I think right now, discardlock is in a good spot, especially with its flexibility due to the quest no longer being the ONLY game plan. And with most archetypes in HS, you don't go all in with Discard cards, you only pull the most efficient ones. I've seen plenty of decklists that make use of a "discard package" with Soulfire, Soulwarden, Shriek, High Priestess Jeklik, and The Soularium.
Even then, it wouldn't take too many more cards to go all in on a Discard Warlock and not take it into a trash tier, certainly, it won't be a tier 1 if you mostly just stack discard cards, but the archetype is definitely in a good spot IMO.
As far as a review goes, let me throw down my initial thoughts on these cards.
1.) Warlock Apprentice - 7.5/10. Very simple mechanics, good for a reload in discardlock. However, the drawback being if you pull this card back from Soulwarden or similar effects you're probably gonna be disappointed. Overall good design, could actually see this making it into the game because it has solid strengths and weaknesses.
2.) Cruel Caster - 5.5/10. Very Vanilla stats and Battlecry. I can see the idea for the deathrattle warranting 2 discards, but I think realistically the variance of discarding 2 spells and getting no return is very painful along with a mediocre body. One of the things a lot of these discard minions benefit from is the fact that discarding is usually a net negative and thus gives room to create pretty solid statlines to compensate. This minion doesn't have it. On the flip side, there is also a very abusive high-end case, where you play this as your second to the last card while holding Deathwing or something similarly monstrous, which is not hard to orchestrate as a discardlock. As it stands, this card will either be heavily abused or not played at all, either not being very good for the game itself.
3.) Desperate Lifesteal - 3/10. Very interesting idea, but super situational to ever pull off. To get this card to work the way you want, you have to fulfill too many conditions; Have more cards than your opponent, have enough attack power on the board to heal up, have 5 or more mana, and be willing to potentially trade your board away to get your life back up. It's expensive, but necessarily so, but so situational that I don't see this ever being put intentionally into a deck, which isn't a bad thing, because generating this card somehow at the right time could be very clutch, and because of being super conditional, wouldn't really be that upsetting seeing an opponent pull off this play. I rated it a little lower than I probably would without context of discardlock, simply because theme wise I don't see how this connects too much with discardlock specifically.
4.) Fel Elf - 6/10. Super powerful, simple designed card. This card I think would break Hearthstone and cause discardlock to implode once again. Why? Because the one thing holding discardlock back before was that discarded cards were permanently gone from that match. That's why Soulwarden now is considered such a good card, it turned dead cards into a pool that warlocks pull from now. It works because of the high cost of the minion means Discardlock isn't going to steamroll early game with high rolls. This card along with Soulwarden simply gives WAY too much power to the discard mechanic and would make it broken. I gave it a good rating, because in context, and without Soulwarden this card would BE the thing to bring discardlock back.
5.) Gorishi Grub - 4/10. I originally was gonna give this like a 2/3, but as I started writing this, I remembered Shriek and Reckless Diretroll. This card would be a good way to start swinging the archetype into a more aggro/midrange way, or atleast allow that possibility. However, even at the end, after using this buffer those last cards, you're just left with a 1/2 without much synergy. Overall, I would probably not consider as my first pick in a low-cost discardlock, but if it had enough support I'd probably put it in as a 2nd or 3rd round slot.
6.) Imp's Scroll - 5/10. Again another weak card I would rate lower, but this combo'd with Catacylsm would actually be pretty cool. In every other situation I can think of, this is a very weak card for the slot in your deck and even with the combo above, the cards individually aren't that strong and would lead to a very incosistent deck IMO. I'm not sure how I'd change this card for the better, as design wise it's probably locked into it's best version now.