I've NEVER been able to make it to legendary & it's now a goal to do asap.
I'm having a lot of luck & fun with this priest deck, but feel like it could be tweaked to have more reliable success & would love any suggestions on substitions or game play.
Here's what I love about it -
Copy / Discovery = Lots of fun playing class cards for classes I generally don't like to play fully, like shaman & DH.
Great very mana-cheap board sweeps so I can survive to successfully play many of the higher cost cards. It can be very successful against huge & aggressive archetypes.
It seems to allow active play from beginning to end, so no long-term stasis with simply surviving behind a few taunt or spell protection.
But I know it's not perfect, but don't know if it can improve without sacrificing the parts I really love.
I would replace Pandaren Importer with Venomous Scorpid. It's a bigger threat for your opponent in most cases and you can discover copies of cards you already run in your deck which is a big plus since you run many good spells.
Speaking of Brann Bronzebeard. He can be really good with discovered cards of your opponent or your own discover cards.
No Theotar, the Mad Duke ? C'mon it's a thief deck after all. And it's by far the most powerful thief card in the whole game.
Cards i would also cut: Boon of the Ascended - too conditional and a dead card without a minion on the board. Soothsayer's Caravan - only (sometimes) worth it if you play it on curve Copycat - never paid off for me personally Lyra the Sunshard - too slow, too conditional, too much rng and the discover pool isn't as good nowadays (still one of my favorite cards ever printed though)
Maybe you can be inspired by Kibler's dragon thief : https://youtu.be/SQ9xdlpj9mk He's always doing nice things :)
Personally, I don't think Drakonid Operative is a good card anymore. It was my favourite card back in the days (I always loved thief priest but it was not viable before this extension I think) but it's too slow now. I also tried the caravan, which is really fun but not viable either unfortunately.
I play a version without the dragon package and I have a really good winrate. I'm still not ok with every card but I love to play it :
### Mini set Thief Priest # Class: Priest # Format: Standard # Year of the Hydra # 2x (0) Desperate Prayer # 2x (1) Gift of the Naaru # 2x (1) Psychic Conjurer # 2x (1) Shard of the Naaru # 2x (1) The Light! It Burns! # 1x (1) Theft Accusation # 1x (2) Condemn (Rank 1) # 2x (2) Mysterious Visitor # 1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard # 2x (3) Cathedral of Atonement # 2x (3) Identity Theft # 1x (3) Murloc Holmes # 1x (3) Prince Renathal # 1x (3) Rustrot Viper # 1x (3) The Harvester of Envy # 2x (3) Venomous Scorpid # 1x (4) Incriminating Psychic # 2x (4) Lightmaw Netherdrake # 2x (4) School Teacher # 2x (4) Shadow Word: Ruin # 1x (4) Xyrella # 2x (5) Clean the Scene # 1x (5) Theotar, the Mad Duke # 1x (7) Blackwater Behemoth # 1x (7) Mutanus the Devourer # 1x (8) Murozond the Infinite # 1x (8) Whirlpool
Maybe you can be inspired by Kibler's dragon thief : https://youtu.be/SQ9xdlpj9mk He's always doing nice things :)
Personally, I don't think Drakonid Operative is a good card anymore. It was my favourite card back in the days (I always loved thief priest but it was not viable before this extension I think) but it's too slow now. I also tried the caravan, which is really fun but not viable either unfortunately.
I play a version without the dragon package and I have a really good winrate. I'm still not ok with every card but I love to play it :
### Mini set Thief Priest # Class: Priest # Format: Standard # Year of the Hydra # 2x (0) Desperate Prayer # 2x (1) Gift of the Naaru # 2x (1) Psychic Conjurer # 2x (1) Shard of the Naaru # 2x (1) The Light! It Burns! # 1x (1) Theft Accusation # 1x (2) Condemn (Rank 1) # 2x (2) Mysterious Visitor # 1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard # 2x (3) Cathedral of Atonement # 2x (3) Identity Theft # 1x (3) Murloc Holmes # 1x (3) Prince Renathal # 1x (3) Rustrot Viper # 1x (3) The Harvester of Envy # 2x (3) Venomous Scorpid # 1x (4) Incriminating Psychic # 2x (4) Lightmaw Netherdrake # 2x (4) School Teacher # 2x (4) Shadow Word: Ruin # 1x (4) Xyrella # 2x (5) Clean the Scene # 1x (5) Theotar, the Mad Duke # 1x (7) Blackwater Behemoth # 1x (7) Mutanus the Devourer # 1x (8) Murozond the Infinite # 1x (8) Whirlpool
I would replace Pandaren Importer with Venomous Scorpid. It's a bigger threat for your opponent in most cases and you can discover copies of cards you already run in your deck which is a big plus since you run many good spells.
Speaking of Brann Bronzebeard. He can be really good with discovered cards of your opponent or your own discover cards.
No Theotar, the Mad Duke ? C'mon it's a thief deck after all. And it's by far the most powerful thief card in the whole game.
Cards i would also cut: Boon of the Ascended - too conditional and a dead card without a minion on the board. Soothsayer's Caravan - only (sometimes) worth it if you play it on curve Copycat - never paid off for me personally Lyra the Sunshard - too slow, too conditional, too much rng and the discover pool isn't as good nowadays (still one of my favorite cards ever printed though)
[deck]Deck ID or Code[/deck]
Thank you both so much! I'm on mobile right now, which makes this forum really difficult to navigate, but the info & advice you both gave is amazing & I didn't want it to seem like I'm ignoring it.
I'll go through it tonight & mix up a few suggestions when I'm on my laptop. Deck manipulation also sucks on mobile imo compared to laptop.
I am absolutely amazed at the time & effort people are so kind to share here.
Okay, this is what I've decided to do with this deck: Use it for fun.
It's useable, and I'm sure with a few tweaks and different directions (like those suggested already), it could be more competitive than it is. However, I don't think I'm going to get it that great due to my own skill and/or other issues like keeping it maintained to fight against upcoming cards or changes.
At the same time, it's a really fun deck for me to play with. It satisfies all those little quirks that I personally love to fiddle with during play in HS.
I've gone mostly back to mage for my more competitive play, or to be more accurate, more training/practice in deck building AND skill during play to hopefully become more competitive.
But thanks for the help. I'm so impressed with these communities. HS is such a complex game and deckbuilding requires so much planning & thought. The time required to help total strangers with that is no minor gift.
I like that approach. Having fun is what it's all about right? I also don't think that it has anything to do with your skill tbh. The pace of the game got so fast over the past few years and competitive decks are highly efficient at achieving their goal. The abundance of cheap draw, tutor cards and mana cheat e.g. allows players to build highly consistent decks. Decks which are build around RNG mechanics like discover etc. on the other hand are inconsistent by design.
But if you're interested in learning more about deckbuilding and the thought process behind it, i would recommend watching a Youtube creator called Chump. He builds his own competitive decks and always gives insight in his decision making both for deckbuilding and plays. If you want to learn how to build a competitive deck and/or want to become better at playing Hearthstone in general, he's probably the best teacher you can have. Danehearth does the same but for the wild format if you're interested. He's even more sophisticated and innovative when it comes to deckbuilding and makes the most awesome plays which will make you scratch your head. It's actually well worth watching his videos even if you have no interest in the wild format. If you like RNG mechanics and complete chaos decks then you'll start to play wild sooner or later anyways. ;) Sometimes i play wild casual mode just to watch the world burn with cards like Yogg-Saron, Hope's End. Some of these games provided the most memorable moments for me.
I'm so frustrated with the current standard right now. There are SO many cards that just destroy me as a Mage. I know how it sounds to complain & say that it's not fair when I lose, but I'm really struggling to overcome that.
It's not that I think I should or even WANT to win all the time. Winning is obviously good, but even when I am trying to work at building rank, I'd still rather have a fun game than just demolish everything in quick brutal wins.
Right now my mage is extremely strong. I have confidence that I'd be able to take it pretty far, if it was not for a few current cards. Priest Purified Shard, Jailer, Denathrius are all impossible to beat. It's especially bad when a purified shard is tossed out & despite having 20+ armor & full health, I'm done.
It would be at least fair to keep all such cards in classes rather than neutral, and then ensure each class has a one-shot or equivalent card.
And Mage needs to be given better recovery. With abysmal curses thrown in sometimes, there are too many ways to kill a mage without enough mitigation/defense for the mage. There are probably other classes that need more boosts, but I mostly only play Mage or priest. It used to be Mage or Rogue, but Rogue sucks right now.
So wild is a lot more interesting to me than it used to be.
When I came back to play, I figured I'd never play wild, because I hadn't before. Therefore, I dusted nearly ALL my old collection in order to catch up with the standard sets. I'm kicking myself for that. VERY hard kicks.
I'm so frustrated with the current standard right now. There are SO many cards that just destroy me as a Mage. I know how it sounds to complain & say that it's not fair when I lose, but I'm really struggling to overcome that. It's not that I think I should or even WANT to win all the time. Winning is obviously good, but even when I am trying to work at building rank, I'd still rather have a fun game than just demolish everything in quick brutal wins. Right now my mage is extremely strong. I have confidence that I'd be able to take it pretty far, if it was not for a few current cards. Priest Purified Shard, Jailer, Denathrius are all impossible to beat. It's especially bad when a purified shard is tossed out & despite having 20+ armor & full health, I'm done. It would be at least fair to keep all such cards in classes rather than neutral, and then ensure each class has a one-shot or equivalent card.
Of course it feels bad losing the game to one card but quest priest has to be the most fair otk deck i've seen in years. If they somehow manage to reach their goal, they honestly deserve to win that game imo. As someone who plays this game since 2017 i don't have the expectation of winning against an otk/combo deck in the first place if i play a slow control deck. It's literally their job to counter my playstyle so it doesn't bother me at all. I actually feel bad if i manage to disrupt their combo/otk because as a control or midrange player i shouldn't even be able to do that tbh.
Denathrius on the other hand bothers me a lot because he turns every favourable matchup into an unfavourable matchup. If i face an aggro/tempo/midrange deck, i shouldn't be worried about getting otk'd. Pure control was already in a very bad spot beforehand but now it's completely pointless to play this archetype because you can get countered by every archetype (that includes other "control" style decks which play Denathrius).
Don't worry about Jailer, he will be gone as soon as the KOFT cards leave standard. Try to create constant high board pressure or try to steal him with Theotar. I hate playing cards like Theotar but Denathrius alone justifies running this card imo.
And Mage needs to be given better recovery. With abysmal curses thrown in sometimes, there are too many ways to kill a mage without enough mitigation/defense for the mage. There are probably other classes that need more boosts, but I mostly only play Mage or priest.
So wild is a lot more interesting to me than it used to be. When I came back to play, I figured I'd never play wild, because I hadn't before. Therefore, I dusted nearly ALL my old collection in order to catch up with the standard sets. I'm kicking myself for that. VERY hard kicks.
Same here. Dusted multiple expansions before realizing that i want to try wild (thanks to Danehearth btw). A bit outdated (but still useful) guide on how to start a wild collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLz8jwdlvaY
I personally started with crafting the one deck that i liked the most back when it was still in standard (burgle cutlass rogue) but Solem's approach is probably even better. There are multiple legendaries which allow you to build multiple decks around them (like the highlander cards, Old Gods, etc.). If you want to start right now and just want to have some fun, craft OG Yogg and toss in some spells.
Thanks! Yeah, I use two Deepwater Evokers in all my decks. The newer Sunwell also offers up a good assortment of spells that often gives cards typically in good heal/armor classes, and the price is almost always easily met with the whole mana mitigation against deck size. The other things I use a lot are the Solid Alibi to buy some time in decks that set up huge multiple big minions that I can't swipe off the board.
I agree that there's definitely work that goes into getting the Priest quest. I think I'm just so disgusted by ANY outright 'destroy the hero' with no possible mitigation whatsoever. I do understand and see it's silly to consider something as honorable or not, but it just feels that way. That's why I refuse to play that quest. If the result were something NEARLY impossible to beat, it's one thing. if it's something truly fully impossible, it's really frustrating. BUT - again, that's probably because it's usually like the algorithm seems to give me perfect paired opponents for great games 10x in a row, then throws 15 priest quests, abyssmal curse decks, & Jailer decks all at once. First time I EVER finally hit gold a couple weeks ago and then went straight back down to lowest silver after solid losses so many times without a chance to play or counter.
So I am admittedly just talking from a place of deep frustration and probably being just snarky. I'll eventually have a deck that will be the most annoying deck in play and then feel offended when someone tells me that MY deck is the unfair one. Right now I actually hold back all the stupid freeze spells I can use, because I HATE going against them all the time but it seems like Mage is just way too loaded with them in either benefits with other cards or just overall too many freeze spells. If the opponent is being a rude or annoying person tho, I do unleash them.
Thanks! Yeah, I use two Deepwater Evokers in all my decks. The newer Sunwell also offers up a good assortment of spells that often gives cards typically in good heal/armor classes, and the price is almost always easily met with the whole mana mitigation against deck size. The other things I use a lot are the Solid Alibi to buy some time in decks that set up huge multiple big minions that I can't swipe off the board.
I agree that there's definitely work that goes into getting the Priest quest. I think I'm just so disgusted by ANY outright 'destroy the hero' with no possible mitigation whatsoever. I do understand and see it's silly to consider something as honorable or not, but it just feels that way. That's why I refuse to play that quest. If the result were something NEARLY impossible to beat, it's one thing. if it's something truly fully impossible, it's really frustrating. BUT - again, that's probably because it's usually like the algorithm seems to give me perfect paired opponents for great games 10x in a row, then throws 15 priest quests, abyssmal curse decks, & Jailer decks all at once. First time I EVER finally hit gold a couple weeks ago and then went straight back down to lowest silver after solid losses so many times without a chance to play or counter.
So I am admittedly just talking from a place of deep frustration and probably being just snarky. I'll eventually have a deck that will be the most annoying deck in play and then feel offended when someone tells me that MY deck is the unfair one. Right now I actually hold back all the stupid freeze spells I can use, because I HATE going against them all the time but it seems like Mage is just way too loaded with them in either benefits with other cards or just overall too many freeze spells. If the opponent is being a rude or annoying person tho, I do unleash them.
Thanks! Yeah, I use two Deepwater Evokers in all my decks. The newer Sunwell also offers up a good assortment of spells that often gives cards typically in good heal/armor classes, and the price is almost always easily met with the whole mana mitigation against deck size. The other things I use a lot are the Solid Alibi to buy some time in decks that set up huge multiple big minions that I can't swipe off the board.
I'm still not sure what to think about Sunwell. It can be a lot of value for sure but funnily enough it seems to benefit hyper aggro decks the most. It kinda reminds me of Renathal in that sense that it was probably designed for slower decks but ended up being way more powerful in aggressive decks (like Beast Hunter e.g.).
Solid Alibi is the type of card that i consider to be very good and helpful IF you discover it. Some defensive spells deserve a card slot and some are just not doing enough to justify it. I would always prefer removal over a card like Solid Alibi which only buys you one additional turn. Unless you're playing an otk/combo deck, then they become incredibly powerful.
I agree that there's definitely work that goes into getting the Priest quest. I think I'm just so disgusted by ANY outright 'destroy the hero' with no possible mitigation whatsoever. I do understand and see it's silly to consider something as honorable or not, but it just feels that way. That's why I refuse to play that quest. If the result were something NEARLY impossible to beat, it's one thing. if it's something truly fully impossible, it's really frustrating. BUT - again, that's probably because it's usually like the algorithm seems to give me perfect paired opponents for great games 10x in a row, then throws 15 priest quests, abyssmal curse decks, & Jailer decks all at once. First time I EVER finally hit gold a couple weeks ago and then went straight back down to lowest silver after solid losses so many times without a chance to play or counter.
So many things have to go right in order to win a quest priest the game. You need to hit a good curve with cards that actually help you to survive and even when you manage to finish the quest you're incredibly vulnerable to disruption. Often times you can't even play the quest reward after finishing the quest because your opponent was smart enough to bait out your removal and saved some big threats to create board pressure. This strategy is the key to win against quest priest without having to rely on disruption tools.
Abyssmal Curse/Implock is annoying but also has its weaknesses. They can't deal with big minions. If your deck can't create big threats you'll struggle and there's not much you can do about it.
All bad matchups you've mentioned would be a free win for the rogue list i linked btw. If you know what to mulligan for and when to play which card, it's an incredibly powerful deck and beats almost everything you'll see on ladder right now.
So I am admittedly just talking from a place of deep frustration and probably being just snarky. I'll eventually have a deck that will be the most annoying deck in play and then feel offended when someone tells me that MY deck is the unfair one. Right now I actually hold back all the stupid freeze spells I can use, because I HATE going against them all the time but it seems like Mage is just way too loaded with them in either benefits with other cards or just overall too many freeze spells. If the opponent is being a rude or annoying person tho, I do unleash them.
If your goal is to climb the ladder you'll have to ignore your codex and preferred playstyle and play whatever has the most favourable matchups. It sucks but your opponents won't have mercy with you either.
It's not some sort of algorithm which deals you a bad hand. It's either pure RNG(draws etc.), your deck choice or your ability to pilot the deck correctly.
When people come up with these algorithm claims, i always ask myself: what would Blizzard gain from this? Why waste tons of money for an algorithm that has no effect whatsoever. People would have lose and win streaks anyways since RNG is an unavoidable factor in this game.
So true. I am probably wrong about the way I use the word algorithm, but I also think you're right that I'm wrong also at least a little in the definition I think I'm using (yeah, I'm suffering brain frazzle at the moment).
it's not necessarily that I think Blizzard thinks, "This player is winning 6 games in a row w/ Mage. Let's stick them w/ a deck that is statistically Mage butt kicking." It's more it's just reasonable decks reaching a level are playing reliably good against certain other decks. So if Mage does great against most classes except say Shaman, then I'll progress pretty well till both I and Shaman are surpassing them. Then it's inevitably down to just me and shaman decks. So there is where it's the deck archetype (and that may be the wrong term as well?) or strategy. Yes, it's sensible, but it also sucks that there's always just one or two deck strategies that will always close out any TCG, whether it be HS or MTG or anything else.
I'm definitely going to look at Rogue again. It was always one of my fave classes. I again should have phrased my statement that it sucks differently, and said, "Rogue right now sucks because of the cards *I* currently have," which is different than the options that are available. It all goes back to me coming in with ALL expired cards and dusting everything I own to get enough to get just a couple 'good' deck classes in current standard. Sigh. At least that was a lesson learned.
I'll also be working to build that wild collection back up again with purposely purchasing wild packs. Even if I do need to kick myself every time since I had so many wonderful ones and just poofed them all away like a dummy. But sometimes a good kicking when you deserve it prevents future mistakes.
Thanks again for all your advice. it's been absolutely priceless to a returning never-great player who now wants to be better AND have fun. Thanks for addressing both those goals, because the fun is the first priority and the second is getting better, but both are important. :) Your advice has brought up things I hadn't even thought about, and also showed me a lot about wild that I just never even considered and may save my love & patience of the game.
it's not necessarily that I think Blizzard thinks, "This player is winning 6 games in a row w/ Mage. Let's stick them w/ a deck that is statistically Mage butt kicking." It's more it's just reasonable decks reaching a level are playing reliably good against certain other decks. So if Mage does great against most classes except say Shaman, then I'll progress pretty well till both I and Shaman are surpassing them. Then it's inevitably down to just me and shaman decks. So there is where it's the deck archetype (and that may be the wrong term as well?) or strategy. Yes, it's sensible, but it also sucks that there's always just one or two deck strategies that will always close out any TCG, whether it be HS or MTG or anything else.
Here's my take on the current HS game design:
The archetype balance triangle used to look like this: aggro/tempo>otk/combo/midrange>control>aggro/tempo But many people (mostly aggro/tempo players) complained about the rock, paper, scissors aspect of it and demanded changes. They also demanded to get rid of attrition type control decks because they were apparently not capable of conceding against them once they ran out of gas.
Unfortunately the devs gave in to these unreasonable demands after the Dr.Boom Mech Warrior disaster and made some drastic changes to the whole archetype design. First they powercreeped the aggro/tempo archetypes while also neutering attrition control. Then they came up with this "control needs a real wincondition" narrative to distract from the fact that they made real control decks unviable. Every once in a while a decent control deck popped up (Barrens Pries & Kazakusan Warrior) but got almost immediately nerfed into the ground because of another outcry on social media.
And that's how we ended up with these op quest rewards, Denathrius and all these disruption cards which basically made the whole archetype system obsolete because these cards allow you to build a deck which can (in theory) beat everything. That's the reason why you don't feel like you have good matchups anymore once you reach gold or diamand and beyond. Because there is none. If both players use one of these hyper optimised decks and know how to pilot their deck and know eachother moves, then the outcome of the game gets solely determined by RNG. By eliminating the RNG factor of queueing into a bad matchup (if you play one of the hyper optimised decks) the amount of RNG in the game got actually reduced. You can't deny that. BUT the overall gameplay experience took a huge hit because of it.
For me personally the "rock, paper, scissors" era was way less frustrating because i had a much easier time dealing with losses. The game as a whole felt way more balanced because every archetype saw play and you could always count on facing a favourable matchup. It sounds weird but i think that the RNG of facing a good or a bad matchup and the RNG of draw, discover mechanics etc. somehow balanced each other out. Because in a favourable matchup it wouldn't nearly matter as much how lucky my opponent got with draws, discovers etc. And in a bad matchup you could always tell yourself that it was a bad matchup anyways so it didn't matter as much either.
More and more people seem to miss the old system without realizing that this is the real reason why they enjoyed the game more back then.
I'm definitely going to look at Rogue again. It was always one of my fave classes. I again should have phrased my statement that it sucks differently, and said, "Rogue right now sucks because of the cards *I* currently have," which is different than the options that are available. It all goes back to me coming in with ALL expired cards and dusting everything I own to get enough to get just a couple 'good' deck classes in current standard. Sigh. At least that was a lesson learned.
I'll also be working to build that wild collection back up again with purposely purchasing wild packs. Even if I do need to kick myself every time since I had so many wonderful ones and just poofed them all away like a dummy. But sometimes a good kicking when you deserve it prevents future mistakes.
No reason to be mad at yourself. It was a reasonable decision to dust those cards back when you made it. Just make the best of it and use it as an opportunity to practice radical acceptance.
Thanks again for all your advice. it's been absolutely priceless to a returning never-great player who now wants to be better AND have fun. Thanks for addressing both those goals, because the fun is the first priority and the second is getting better, but both are important. :) Your advice has brought up things I hadn't even thought about, and also showed me a lot about wild that I just never even considered and may save my love & patience of the game.
What saved the game for me personally was to stop taking this game too serious. Virtual achievements only become important to you if you subconsciously try to compensate for real life failings which is extremely bad for your mental health. That's why i exclusively play casual mode nowadays. I simply don't care about reaching a certain rank anymore. But i won't lie, it's still frustrating from time to time. I just immediately stop playing whenever i get frustrated or take a short break and do something else.
And yeah starting to play wild also saved my passion for this game. Deckbuilding is a very important aspect for me and in wild you can be very creative. In standard on the other hand most decks kinda build themselves nowadays because of the obvious synergy certain cards have with eachother. It makes the game more accessable for new players but it took away a lot of complexity and the sandbox feeling i used to have when building a deck.
@seshua: you are partly wrong and here is why (yet in my heart i hope the real reason is what you said and not what i believe).
They didn't make control decks unviable because of social media outcries. It was purely for monetary reasons and market targeting.
Most of the younger generations don't like slower games. So how do you bring them into HS and make them spend their parents' money? By making most games end before turn 10. What has that gotten us? 9-10 mana cards that either end the game on their own or make any comeback impossible. The design's focus is clearly "turn 10 at most".
That's also why there will never be control decks anymore. Also why a lot of classes suddenly got tools to draw a lot (what good is a turn 10 game if you barely see half your deck and get frustrated for not drawing properly?!).
I'm sorry but blizzard doesn't give a shit about improving HS overall nor the balance of the cards. If social media outcries mattered we'd have a much cleaner UI, lots of "tools/modes/etc" to have fun with, paying for an expansion would give you all the cards to play with, coming back into the game wouldn't be atrocious, etc.
Right now, the only semblance of a card game is the arena. Until they are gonna destoy it too.
@seshua: you are partly wrong and here is why (yet in my heart i hope the real reason is what you said and not what i believe).
They didn't make control decks unviable because of social media outcries. It was purely for monetary reasons and market targeting.
Oh there's no doubt in my mind that monetary reasons were the decisive factor. But how did they come up with the idea that the majority of the playerbase wants these changes? I don't even think that the majority of players wanted such drastic changes. But unfortunately they kept listening to a very loud and uneducated part of the community and eventually gave in. Some devs got massively harassed on social media back then and some streamers used their communities to create pressure because they didn't like to play against certain decks. But i also think that it had partly to do with their inability to admit to their own mistakes. Instead of admitting that some cards were poorly designed they just suddenly went with the irrational "attrition control is bad for the game" narrative which was coincidentally the same narrative some streamers were spreading beforehand.
There were quite a few new changes to the game at the time I quit a few years ago. I was loving the dungeon runs compared to the old solo adventure format. I'm playing a lot of duels since it resembles that so much, but it's been even more frustrating than standard. There are so many overpowered aspects in duels. The warrior passive power of putting a 5-damage bomb into my deck at the end of EVERY turn the opponent has armor is the WORST. Especially in lower level games, when you only have a small health and very few cards. With so many available options for lots of armor very cheap, it's a PITA.
I also loved the concept of the Whizzbang card giving you random full decks each game of random classes. It allowed ANYONE to play with the full set. I still only like a couple classes, but being forced to work with ALL classes was really a great way to expand experience. I really miss that.
I actually feel bad for going off-topic so much and venting about my gripes with the game. This is your thread after all and not mine. Sorry for that. I guess i'm just as frustrated with the game as you are.
There were quite a few new changes to the game at the time I quit a few years ago. I was loving the dungeon runs compared to the old solo adventure format. I'm playing a lot of duels since it resembles that so much, but it's been even more frustrating than standard. There are so many overpowered aspects in duels. The warrior passive power of putting a 5-damage bomb into my deck at the end of EVERY turn the opponent has armor is the WORST. Especially in lower level games, when you only have a small health and very few cards. With so many available options for lots of armor very cheap, it's a PITA.
Yeah the way they handled the duels mode is still baffling to me. No free access to the wild format cards and very bad balancing for passives & heropowers made this a project destined to fail from the beginning. It's kinda sad because i really liked the concept behind it and the similarity to the dungeon runs you've mentioned.
I also loved the concept of the Whizzbang card giving you random full decks each game of random classes. It allowed ANYONE to play with the full set. I still only like a couple classes, but being forced to work with ALL classes was really a great way to expand experience. I really miss that.
I agree 100%. Whizzbang was such a cool card and i wish they had continued to print a card like this after each rotation.
I'm queen of topic jumping w/ natural enhancements from ADHD. Not only do I not care when others do, I'm happy to follow along the winding trail. :D
I play duels nearly as much as I play standard, b/c they're still pretty fun. It's the ongoing deck manipulation & changes that I love so much. I feel like a kid with a present when I get to pick out a new passive.
I HATE arena. I've never been able to get a good deck with the limited card choices. I basically know after the first game that I'm simply not going to win more than once. Duels allow you to build your starter deck, then allows you to change strategy or improve by adding more throughout play. I'm currently able to reliably win 3-5 games, which isn't GREAT but much better than I've EVER done in arena.
The imbalance between available heroes & their powers is still horrible. My current favorites are Vanndar Stormpike neutral or Drek neutral. The 15 spell discovery cards is a life saver for early game decks of Ratttlegore's 5-damage bombs since there's much more padding for the bomb draw chances. Unfortunately it's still very necessary to hit as hard as possible to avoid letting Rattlegore collect way too much armor. The other one that makes me gnash my teeth is the voidfiend priest.
I've only played once in Battlegrounds, and disliked it enough to not play again. It may be more about just being a new format than I'm used to, which would fade after playing a while, but it was an incredibly boring & tedious play mode.
I did like the Mercenaries for a while, but quicky reached the point that ridiculous amounts of grinding must be done before progressing.
I'm a little nervous about the upcoming expansion w/ new class added. The intro of the Demon Hunter class is what led to quitting for so long. It was probably the worst meta that I had personally played. I hope that's not going to recur. DH is still a pain in the ass w/ the ridiculous amounts of VERY cheap hero attacks combined w/ the one of the cheapest hero powers. Coming back to the introduction of DH relics is dredging up the old feelings of utter frustration.
I'm queen of topic jumping w/ natural enhancements from ADHD. Not only do I not care when others do, I'm happy to follow along the winding trail. :D
Yeah i tend to digress a lot due to other "natural enhancements".
I play duels nearly as much as I play standard, b/c they're still pretty fun. It's the ongoing deck manipulation & changes that I love so much. I feel like a kid with a present when I get to pick out a new passive.
The imbalance between available heroes & their powers is still horrible. My current favorites are Vanndar Stormpike neutral or Drek neutral. The 15 spell discovery cards is a life saver for early game decks of Ratttlegore's 5-damage bombs since there's much more padding for the bomb draw chances. Unfortunately it's still very necessary to hit as hard as possible to avoid letting Rattlegore collect way too much armor. The other one that makes me gnash my teeth is the voidfiend priest.
I'm surprised that you don't seem to have any problems with the fact that some of your opponents have access to powerful cards from the wild format, while you can't make use of some synergies unless you craft them. Don't you face highly optomised decks which are entirely build around certain heroes and passives on a regular basis? Because that was my experience just a few days after release of the duels mode and it was very frustrating to lose a game just because my opponent had access to certain cards from the wild format. Idk how it is nowadays but it really ruined the mode for me and i'm not even the competitive type of person.
I HATE arena. I've never been able to get a good deck with the limited card choices. I basically know after the first game that I'm simply not going to win more than once. Duels allow you to build your starter deck, then allows you to change strategy or improve by adding more throughout play. I'm currently able to reliably win 3-5 games, which isn't GREAT but much better than I've EVER done in arena.
Yeah i also tried to get into the arena mode when i started playing Hearthstone because it used to be the most efficient way to gain gold for f2p players. But i always ended up losing more than i gained from it. :D
I've only played once in Battlegrounds, and disliked it enough to not play again. It may be more about just being a new format than I'm used to, which would fade after playing a while, but it was an incredibly boring & tedious play mode.
I never understood the appeal of these auto battlers tbh. I tried it but i also found it to be very boring. Maybe i don't fully understand it but it's weird to me how you can have official tournaments with a game that involves so much RNG. Sure, you need to know what to search for and make some meaningful decisions but the game can still deal you a bad hand and you basically roll the dice each time you reroll your minion choices.
I did like the Mercenaries for a while, but quicky reached the point that ridiculous amounts of grinding must be done before progressing.
I also tried the Mercenaries mode. Got bored with it very quickly and stopped playing it after just a few days even though i bought one of the pre-order bundles. I still don't know exactly why i bought this bundle because there were so many red flags and not a single reason to believe in the success of this mode from the very beginning. I mean even the final reveal stream left way more questions than answers. I guess it was just an impulsive act. It's also baffling to me how they got away with having purchasable loot boxes which contained worthless excess coins for maxed out characters. I'm not a lawyer but i'm pretty sure that this is illegal no matter where you live. The fact that no one else did this before them is a good indication for that.
I'm a little nervous about the upcoming expansion w/ new class added. The intro of the Demon Hunter class is what led to quitting for so long. It was probably the worst meta that I had personally played. I hope that's not going to recur. DH is still a pain in the ass w/ the ridiculous amounts of VERY cheap hero attacks combined w/ the one of the cheapest hero powers. Coming back to the introduction of DH relics is dredging up the old feelings of utter frustration.
The majority of players will play the new class, either out of curiosity or simply because of the charm of novelty but i'm not sure if it will end up as a top tier class like DH did before. I'm almost certain that any type of blood rune deck will be too slow. And i'm not sure if frost, unholy or frost unholy decks are fast enough because this will be the deciding factor. They revealed some very strong cards for hyper aggressive token style decks ( Hawkstrider Rancher e.g.) and other classes like druid still seem to have better ways to utilize them even though we haven't seen their new cards. Shaman also seems to go that route with the revealed cards. Warlock already snowballs really fast out of control (like literally out of control). As much as i would love to see Denthrius gone from the meta, i don't look forward to what he'll get replaced with. So far everything points towards a hyper aggressive meta with decks that will kill you way before you even have the chance to play one of the more expensive but way cooler cards. But hey, we haven't seen all of the cards yet. There's still hope.
And i agree with your sentiment about DH. I'm not a big fan of mana cheating in general and both Druid and DH excell at bypassing the core resource system of the game. Heavily reducing the mana cost or increasing the amount of mana you have will always cause balance issues. But the devs apparently still hold on to the idea that i could be done right after all these years.
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I've NEVER been able to make it to legendary & it's now a goal to do asap.
I'm having a lot of luck & fun with this priest deck, but feel like it could be tweaked to have more reliable success & would love any suggestions on substitions or game play.
Here's what I love about it -
But I know it's not perfect, but don't know if it can improve without sacrificing the parts I really love.
Any suggestions?
Priest: Identity Thief + Dragons
I would replace Pandaren Importer with Venomous Scorpid.
It's a bigger threat for your opponent in most cases and you can discover copies of cards you already run in your deck which is a big plus since you run many good spells.
I would also cut Faerie Dragon and Cobalt Scalebane from the list because they don't provide much value other than having the dragon tag.
Drakonid Operative , Incriminating Psychic and Murozond the Infinite are more than enough to fulfill the Kazakusan requirement.
Raid Boss Onyxia is probably even better than Murozond the Infinite because it always does something powerful.
Shadow Word: Ruin should def be on this list.
I would even run more than 2 copies if i could.
I also run TWO copies of Cathedral of Atonement because card draw is king.
Same goes for Gift of the Naaru.
Thrive in the Shadows is also very good if you need to find your removal.
Same goes for Illuminate.
Condemn (Rank 1) can also be quite good if you run into a lot of aggressive token decks (druids, imp warlock).
Desperate Prayer is better than Flash Heal if you run Xyrella.
One mana can make all the difference (especially against token decks).
I would also add another copy of Spirit Guide.
School Teacher is still really good.
I even run Brann Bronzebeard just for the combo with this card.
Speaking of Brann Bronzebeard.
He can be really good with discovered cards of your opponent or your own discover cards.
No Theotar, the Mad Duke ?
C'mon it's a thief deck after all.
And it's by far the most powerful thief card in the whole game.
Cards i would also cut:
Boon of the Ascended - too conditional and a dead card without a minion on the board.
Soothsayer's Caravan - only (sometimes) worth it if you play it on curve
Copycat - never paid off for me personally
Lyra the Sunshard - too slow, too conditional, too much rng and the discover pool isn't as good nowadays (still one of my favorite cards ever printed though)
Hello,
Maybe you can be inspired by Kibler's dragon thief : https://youtu.be/SQ9xdlpj9mk He's always doing nice things :)
Personally, I don't think Drakonid Operative is a good card anymore. It was my favourite card back in the days (I always loved thief priest but it was not viable before this extension I think) but it's too slow now. I also tried the caravan, which is really fun but not viable either unfortunately.
I play a version without the dragon package and I have a really good winrate. I'm still not ok with every card but I love to play it :
### Mini set Thief Priest
# Class: Priest
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Hydra
# 2x (0) Desperate Prayer
# 2x (1) Gift of the Naaru
# 2x (1) Psychic Conjurer
# 2x (1) Shard of the Naaru
# 2x (1) The Light! It Burns!
# 1x (1) Theft Accusation
# 1x (2) Condemn (Rank 1)
# 2x (2) Mysterious Visitor
# 1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard
# 2x (3) Cathedral of Atonement
# 2x (3) Identity Theft
# 1x (3) Murloc Holmes
# 1x (3) Prince Renathal
# 1x (3) Rustrot Viper
# 1x (3) The Harvester of Envy
# 2x (3) Venomous Scorpid
# 1x (4) Incriminating Psychic
# 2x (4) Lightmaw Netherdrake
# 2x (4) School Teacher
# 2x (4) Shadow Word: Ruin
# 1x (4) Xyrella
# 2x (5) Clean the Scene
# 1x (5) Theotar, the Mad Duke
# 1x (7) Blackwater Behemoth
# 1x (7) Mutanus the Devourer
# 1x (8) Murozond the Infinite
# 1x (8) Whirlpool
[deck]AAECAd35Aw6e6wPU7QOm7wPQ+QOhtgSotgSY1AS42QTF5AT+7gSB7wSX7wS/8ASIpAUNlugDmesDh/cDvp8E8J8EiqME1KwElrcE8tsE+dsEuNwEutwEhoMFAA==[/deck]
[deck]Deck ID or Code[/deck]
Thank you both so much! I'm on mobile right now, which makes this forum really difficult to navigate, but the info & advice you both gave is amazing & I didn't want it to seem like I'm ignoring it.
I'll go through it tonight & mix up a few suggestions when I'm on my laptop. Deck manipulation also sucks on mobile imo compared to laptop.
I am absolutely amazed at the time & effort people are so kind to share here.
@Seshua - Your answer basically is to run a whole different deck.
Okay, this is what I've decided to do with this deck: Use it for fun.
It's useable, and I'm sure with a few tweaks and different directions (like those suggested already), it could be more competitive than it is. However, I don't think I'm going to get it that great due to my own skill and/or other issues like keeping it maintained to fight against upcoming cards or changes.
At the same time, it's a really fun deck for me to play with. It satisfies all those little quirks that I personally love to fiddle with during play in HS.
I've gone mostly back to mage for my more competitive play, or to be more accurate, more training/practice in deck building AND skill during play to hopefully become more competitive.
But thanks for the help. I'm so impressed with these communities. HS is such a complex game and deckbuilding requires so much planning & thought. The time required to help total strangers with that is no minor gift.
I like that approach.
Having fun is what it's all about right?
I also don't think that it has anything to do with your skill tbh.
The pace of the game got so fast over the past few years and competitive decks are highly efficient at achieving their goal.
The abundance of cheap draw, tutor cards and mana cheat e.g. allows players to build highly consistent decks.
Decks which are build around RNG mechanics like discover etc. on the other hand are inconsistent by design.
But if you're interested in learning more about deckbuilding and the thought process behind it, i would recommend watching a Youtube creator called Chump.
He builds his own competitive decks and always gives insight in his decision making both for deckbuilding and plays.
If you want to learn how to build a competitive deck and/or want to become better at playing Hearthstone in general, he's probably the best teacher you can have.
Danehearth does the same but for the wild format if you're interested.
He's even more sophisticated and innovative when it comes to deckbuilding and makes the most awesome plays which will make you scratch your head.
It's actually well worth watching his videos even if you have no interest in the wild format.
If you like RNG mechanics and complete chaos decks then you'll start to play wild sooner or later anyways. ;)
Sometimes i play wild casual mode just to watch the world burn with cards like Yogg-Saron, Hope's End.
Some of these games provided the most memorable moments for me.
Thanks! I'll look into that.
I'm so frustrated with the current standard right now. There are SO many cards that just destroy me as a Mage. I know how it sounds to complain & say that it's not fair when I lose, but I'm really struggling to overcome that.
It's not that I think I should or even WANT to win all the time. Winning is obviously good, but even when I am trying to work at building rank, I'd still rather have a fun game than just demolish everything in quick brutal wins.
Right now my mage is extremely strong. I have confidence that I'd be able to take it pretty far, if it was not for a few current cards. Priest Purified Shard, Jailer, Denathrius are all impossible to beat. It's especially bad when a purified shard is tossed out & despite having 20+ armor & full health, I'm done.
It would be at least fair to keep all such cards in classes rather than neutral, and then ensure each class has a one-shot or equivalent card.
And Mage needs to be given better recovery. With abysmal curses thrown in sometimes, there are too many ways to kill a mage without enough mitigation/defense for the mage. There are probably other classes that need more boosts, but I mostly only play Mage or priest. It used to be Mage or Rogue, but Rogue sucks right now.
So wild is a lot more interesting to me than it used to be.
When I came back to play, I figured I'd never play wild, because I hadn't before. Therefore, I dusted nearly ALL my old collection in order to catch up with the standard sets. I'm kicking myself for that. VERY hard kicks.
Of course it feels bad losing the game to one card but quest priest has to be the most fair otk deck i've seen in years.
If they somehow manage to reach their goal, they honestly deserve to win that game imo.
As someone who plays this game since 2017 i don't have the expectation of winning against an otk/combo deck in the first place if i play a slow control deck.
It's literally their job to counter my playstyle so it doesn't bother me at all.
I actually feel bad if i manage to disrupt their combo/otk because as a control or midrange player i shouldn't even be able to do that tbh.
Denathrius on the other hand bothers me a lot because he turns every favourable matchup into an unfavourable matchup.
If i face an aggro/tempo/midrange deck, i shouldn't be worried about getting otk'd.
Pure control was already in a very bad spot beforehand but now it's completely pointless to play this archetype because you can get countered by every archetype (that includes other "control" style decks which play Denathrius).
Don't worry about Jailer, he will be gone as soon as the KOFT cards leave standard.
Try to create constant high board pressure or try to steal him with Theotar.
I hate playing cards like Theotar but Denathrius alone justifies running this card imo.
This mage list is has a lot of dmg mitigation and can deal pretty well with early aggression:
https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/deckbuilder?deckcode=AAECAf0ECqCKBNjsA/uiBJfvBPqsBLjZBOWwBKneBPqsBPuiBA/U6gPW7APa0ATQ7APcuQTS7AOEkwXb3gSTgQTT7AOUgQT67ASSgQSYjgSogQQA
The Deepwater Evoker seems to have anti synergy with all the cheap spells but is mostly used for draw + board presence anyways.
Rogue is actually still pretty strong. The good decks are just not that easy to play.
This Jalexander list e.g. is really strong but you need to know how to play it to make it work.
https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/deckbuilder?deckcode=AAEBAaIHBpafBPuKBPbdBO2ABPXdBJfnAgz3nwS9gAS3swTj0wSJ0gTBgwXr9gP8pQTT8wP+7gOh9AP2nwQA
Not my cup of tea tbh but if you like the miracle rogue playstyle you'll probably also like this deck.
Same here. Dusted multiple expansions before realizing that i want to try wild (thanks to Danehearth btw).
A bit outdated (but still useful) guide on how to start a wild collection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLz8jwdlvaY
I personally started with crafting the one deck that i liked the most back when it was still in standard (burgle cutlass rogue) but Solem's approach is probably even better.
There are multiple legendaries which allow you to build multiple decks around them (like the highlander cards, Old Gods, etc.).
If you want to start right now and just want to have some fun, craft OG Yogg and toss in some spells.
Thanks! Yeah, I use two Deepwater Evokers in all my decks. The newer Sunwell also offers up a good assortment of spells that often gives cards typically in good heal/armor classes, and the price is almost always easily met with the whole mana mitigation against deck size. The other things I use a lot are the Solid Alibi to buy some time in decks that set up huge multiple big minions that I can't swipe off the board.
I agree that there's definitely work that goes into getting the Priest quest. I think I'm just so disgusted by ANY outright 'destroy the hero' with no possible mitigation whatsoever. I do understand and see it's silly to consider something as honorable or not, but it just feels that way. That's why I refuse to play that quest. If the result were something NEARLY impossible to beat, it's one thing. if it's something truly fully impossible, it's really frustrating. BUT - again, that's probably because it's usually like the algorithm seems to give me perfect paired opponents for great games 10x in a row, then throws 15 priest quests, abyssmal curse decks, & Jailer decks all at once. First time I EVER finally hit gold a couple weeks ago and then went straight back down to lowest silver after solid losses so many times without a chance to play or counter.
So I am admittedly just talking from a place of deep frustration and probably being just snarky. I'll eventually have a deck that will be the most annoying deck in play and then feel offended when someone tells me that MY deck is the unfair one. Right now I actually hold back all the stupid freeze spells I can use, because I HATE going against them all the time but it seems like Mage is just way too loaded with them in either benefits with other cards or just overall too many freeze spells. If the opponent is being a rude or annoying person tho, I do unleash them.
Thanks! Yeah, I use two Deepwater Evokers in all my decks. The newer Sunwell also offers up a good assortment of spells that often gives cards typically in good heal/armor classes, and the price is almost always easily met with the whole mana mitigation against deck size. The other things I use a lot are the Solid Alibi to buy some time in decks that set up huge multiple big minions that I can't swipe off the board.
I agree that there's definitely work that goes into getting the Priest quest. I think I'm just so disgusted by ANY outright 'destroy the hero' with no possible mitigation whatsoever. I do understand and see it's silly to consider something as honorable or not, but it just feels that way. That's why I refuse to play that quest. If the result were something NEARLY impossible to beat, it's one thing. if it's something truly fully impossible, it's really frustrating. BUT - again, that's probably because it's usually like the algorithm seems to give me perfect paired opponents for great games 10x in a row, then throws 15 priest quests, abyssmal curse decks, & Jailer decks all at once. First time I EVER finally hit gold a couple weeks ago and then went straight back down to lowest silver after solid losses so many times without a chance to play or counter.
So I am admittedly just talking from a place of deep frustration and probably being just snarky. I'll eventually have a deck that will be the most annoying deck in play and then feel offended when someone tells me that MY deck is the unfair one. Right now I actually hold back all the stupid freeze spells I can use, because I HATE going against them all the time but it seems like Mage is just way too loaded with them in either benefits with other cards or just overall too many freeze spells. If the opponent is being a rude or annoying person tho, I do unleash them.
I'm still not sure what to think about Sunwell. It can be a lot of value for sure but funnily enough it seems to benefit hyper aggro decks the most.
It kinda reminds me of Renathal in that sense that it was probably designed for slower decks but ended up being way more powerful in aggressive decks (like Beast Hunter e.g.).
Solid Alibi is the type of card that i consider to be very good and helpful IF you discover it.
Some defensive spells deserve a card slot and some are just not doing enough to justify it.
I would always prefer removal over a card like Solid Alibi which only buys you one additional turn.
Unless you're playing an otk/combo deck, then they become incredibly powerful.
So many things have to go right in order to win a quest priest the game.
You need to hit a good curve with cards that actually help you to survive and even when you manage to finish the quest you're incredibly vulnerable to disruption.
Often times you can't even play the quest reward after finishing the quest because your opponent was smart enough to bait out your removal and saved some big threats to create board pressure.
This strategy is the key to win against quest priest without having to rely on disruption tools.
Abyssmal Curse/Implock is annoying but also has its weaknesses.
They can't deal with big minions.
If your deck can't create big threats you'll struggle and there's not much you can do about it.
All bad matchups you've mentioned would be a free win for the rogue list i linked btw.
If you know what to mulligan for and when to play which card, it's an incredibly powerful deck and beats almost everything you'll see on ladder right now.
If your goal is to climb the ladder you'll have to ignore your codex and preferred playstyle and play whatever has the most favourable matchups.
It sucks but your opponents won't have mercy with you either.
It's not some sort of algorithm which deals you a bad hand.
It's either pure RNG(draws etc.), your deck choice or your ability to pilot the deck correctly.
When people come up with these algorithm claims, i always ask myself: what would Blizzard gain from this?
Why waste tons of money for an algorithm that has no effect whatsoever.
People would have lose and win streaks anyways since RNG is an unavoidable factor in this game.
So true. I am probably wrong about the way I use the word algorithm, but I also think you're right that I'm wrong also at least a little in the definition I think I'm using (yeah, I'm suffering brain frazzle at the moment).
it's not necessarily that I think Blizzard thinks, "This player is winning 6 games in a row w/ Mage. Let's stick them w/ a deck that is statistically Mage butt kicking." It's more it's just reasonable decks reaching a level are playing reliably good against certain other decks. So if Mage does great against most classes except say Shaman, then I'll progress pretty well till both I and Shaman are surpassing them. Then it's inevitably down to just me and shaman decks. So there is where it's the deck archetype (and that may be the wrong term as well?) or strategy. Yes, it's sensible, but it also sucks that there's always just one or two deck strategies that will always close out any TCG, whether it be HS or MTG or anything else.
I'm definitely going to look at Rogue again. It was always one of my fave classes. I again should have phrased my statement that it sucks differently, and said, "Rogue right now sucks because of the cards *I* currently have," which is different than the options that are available. It all goes back to me coming in with ALL expired cards and dusting everything I own to get enough to get just a couple 'good' deck classes in current standard. Sigh. At least that was a lesson learned.
I'll also be working to build that wild collection back up again with purposely purchasing wild packs. Even if I do need to kick myself every time since I had so many wonderful ones and just poofed them all away like a dummy. But sometimes a good kicking when you deserve it prevents future mistakes.
Thanks again for all your advice. it's been absolutely priceless to a returning never-great player who now wants to be better AND have fun. Thanks for addressing both those goals, because the fun is the first priority and the second is getting better, but both are important. :) Your advice has brought up things I hadn't even thought about, and also showed me a lot about wild that I just never even considered and may save my love & patience of the game.
Here's my take on the current HS game design:
The archetype balance triangle used to look like this: aggro/tempo>otk/combo/midrange>control>aggro/tempo
But many people (mostly aggro/tempo players) complained about the rock, paper, scissors aspect of it and demanded changes.
They also demanded to get rid of attrition type control decks because they were apparently not capable of conceding against them once they ran out of gas.
Unfortunately the devs gave in to these unreasonable demands after the Dr.Boom Mech Warrior disaster and made some drastic changes to the whole archetype design.
First they powercreeped the aggro/tempo archetypes while also neutering attrition control.
Then they came up with this "control needs a real wincondition" narrative to distract from the fact that they made real control decks unviable.
Every once in a while a decent control deck popped up (Barrens Pries & Kazakusan Warrior) but got almost immediately nerfed into the ground because of another outcry on social media.
And that's how we ended up with these op quest rewards, Denathrius and all these disruption cards which basically made the whole archetype system obsolete because these cards allow you to build a deck which can (in theory) beat everything.
That's the reason why you don't feel like you have good matchups anymore once you reach gold or diamand and beyond.
Because there is none.
If both players use one of these hyper optimised decks and know how to pilot their deck and know eachother moves, then the outcome of the game gets solely determined by RNG.
By eliminating the RNG factor of queueing into a bad matchup (if you play one of the hyper optimised decks) the amount of RNG in the game got actually reduced.
You can't deny that.
BUT the overall gameplay experience took a huge hit because of it.
For me personally the "rock, paper, scissors" era was way less frustrating because i had a much easier time dealing with losses.
The game as a whole felt way more balanced because every archetype saw play and you could always count on facing a favourable matchup.
It sounds weird but i think that the RNG of facing a good or a bad matchup and the RNG of draw, discover mechanics etc. somehow balanced each other out.
Because in a favourable matchup it wouldn't nearly matter as much how lucky my opponent got with draws, discovers etc.
And in a bad matchup you could always tell yourself that it was a bad matchup anyways so it didn't matter as much either.
More and more people seem to miss the old system without realizing that this is the real reason why they enjoyed the game more back then.
No reason to be mad at yourself.
It was a reasonable decision to dust those cards back when you made it.
Just make the best of it and use it as an opportunity to practice radical acceptance.
What saved the game for me personally was to stop taking this game too serious.
Virtual achievements only become important to you if you subconsciously try to compensate for real life failings which is extremely bad for your mental health.
That's why i exclusively play casual mode nowadays. I simply don't care about reaching a certain rank anymore.
But i won't lie, it's still frustrating from time to time.
I just immediately stop playing whenever i get frustrated or take a short break and do something else.
And yeah starting to play wild also saved my passion for this game.
Deckbuilding is a very important aspect for me and in wild you can be very creative.
In standard on the other hand most decks kinda build themselves nowadays because of the obvious synergy certain cards have with eachother.
It makes the game more accessable for new players but it took away a lot of complexity and the sandbox feeling i used to have when building a deck.
@seshua: you are partly wrong and here is why (yet in my heart i hope the real reason is what you said and not what i believe).
They didn't make control decks unviable because of social media outcries. It was purely for monetary reasons and market targeting.
Most of the younger generations don't like slower games. So how do you bring them into HS and make them spend their parents' money? By making most games end before turn 10. What has that gotten us? 9-10 mana cards that either end the game on their own or make any comeback impossible. The design's focus is clearly "turn 10 at most".
That's also why there will never be control decks anymore. Also why a lot of classes suddenly got tools to draw a lot (what good is a turn 10 game if you barely see half your deck and get frustrated for not drawing properly?!).
I'm sorry but blizzard doesn't give a shit about improving HS overall nor the balance of the cards. If social media outcries mattered we'd have a much cleaner UI, lots of "tools/modes/etc" to have fun with, paying for an expansion would give you all the cards to play with, coming back into the game wouldn't be atrocious, etc.
Right now, the only semblance of a card game is the arena. Until they are gonna destoy it too.
Oh there's no doubt in my mind that monetary reasons were the decisive factor.
But how did they come up with the idea that the majority of the playerbase wants these changes?
I don't even think that the majority of players wanted such drastic changes.
But unfortunately they kept listening to a very loud and uneducated part of the community and eventually gave in.
Some devs got massively harassed on social media back then and some streamers used their communities to create pressure because they didn't like to play against certain decks.
But i also think that it had partly to do with their inability to admit to their own mistakes.
Instead of admitting that some cards were poorly designed they just suddenly went with the irrational "attrition control is bad for the game" narrative which was coincidentally the same narrative some streamers were spreading beforehand.
This is a great analysis!
There were quite a few new changes to the game at the time I quit a few years ago. I was loving the dungeon runs compared to the old solo adventure format. I'm playing a lot of duels since it resembles that so much, but it's been even more frustrating than standard. There are so many overpowered aspects in duels. The warrior passive power of putting a 5-damage bomb into my deck at the end of EVERY turn the opponent has armor is the WORST. Especially in lower level games, when you only have a small health and very few cards. With so many available options for lots of armor very cheap, it's a PITA.
I also loved the concept of the Whizzbang card giving you random full decks each game of random classes. It allowed ANYONE to play with the full set. I still only like a couple classes, but being forced to work with ALL classes was really a great way to expand experience. I really miss that.
I actually feel bad for going off-topic so much and venting about my gripes with the game.
This is your thread after all and not mine.
Sorry for that.
I guess i'm just as frustrated with the game as you are.
Yeah the way they handled the duels mode is still baffling to me.
No free access to the wild format cards and very bad balancing for passives & heropowers made this a project destined to fail from the beginning.
It's kinda sad because i really liked the concept behind it and the similarity to the dungeon runs you've mentioned.
I agree 100%.
Whizzbang was such a cool card and i wish they had continued to print a card like this after each rotation.
I'm queen of topic jumping w/ natural enhancements from ADHD. Not only do I not care when others do, I'm happy to follow along the winding trail. :D
I play duels nearly as much as I play standard, b/c they're still pretty fun. It's the ongoing deck manipulation & changes that I love so much. I feel like a kid with a present when I get to pick out a new passive.
I HATE arena. I've never been able to get a good deck with the limited card choices. I basically know after the first game that I'm simply not going to win more than once. Duels allow you to build your starter deck, then allows you to change strategy or improve by adding more throughout play. I'm currently able to reliably win 3-5 games, which isn't GREAT but much better than I've EVER done in arena.
The imbalance between available heroes & their powers is still horrible. My current favorites are Vanndar Stormpike neutral or Drek neutral. The 15 spell discovery cards is a life saver for early game decks of Ratttlegore's 5-damage bombs since there's much more padding for the bomb draw chances. Unfortunately it's still very necessary to hit as hard as possible to avoid letting Rattlegore collect way too much armor. The other one that makes me gnash my teeth is the voidfiend priest.
I've only played once in Battlegrounds, and disliked it enough to not play again. It may be more about just being a new format than I'm used to, which would fade after playing a while, but it was an incredibly boring & tedious play mode.
I did like the Mercenaries for a while, but quicky reached the point that ridiculous amounts of grinding must be done before progressing.
I'm a little nervous about the upcoming expansion w/ new class added. The intro of the Demon Hunter class is what led to quitting for so long. It was probably the worst meta that I had personally played. I hope that's not going to recur. DH is still a pain in the ass w/ the ridiculous amounts of VERY cheap hero attacks combined w/ the one of the cheapest hero powers. Coming back to the introduction of DH relics is dredging up the old feelings of utter frustration.
Yeah i tend to digress a lot due to other "natural enhancements".
I'm surprised that you don't seem to have any problems with the fact that some of your opponents have access to powerful cards from the wild format, while you can't make use of some synergies unless you craft them.
Don't you face highly optomised decks which are entirely build around certain heroes and passives on a regular basis?
Because that was my experience just a few days after release of the duels mode and it was very frustrating to lose a game just because my opponent had access to certain cards from the wild format.
Idk how it is nowadays but it really ruined the mode for me and i'm not even the competitive type of person.
Yeah i also tried to get into the arena mode when i started playing Hearthstone because it used to be the most efficient way to gain gold for f2p players.
But i always ended up losing more than i gained from it. :D
I never understood the appeal of these auto battlers tbh.
I tried it but i also found it to be very boring.
Maybe i don't fully understand it but it's weird to me how you can have official tournaments with a game that involves so much RNG.
Sure, you need to know what to search for and make some meaningful decisions but the game can still deal you a bad hand and you basically roll the dice each time you reroll your minion choices.
I also tried the Mercenaries mode.
Got bored with it very quickly and stopped playing it after just a few days even though i bought one of the pre-order bundles.
I still don't know exactly why i bought this bundle because there were so many red flags and not a single reason to believe in the success of this mode from the very beginning.
I mean even the final reveal stream left way more questions than answers.
I guess it was just an impulsive act.
It's also baffling to me how they got away with having purchasable loot boxes which contained worthless excess coins for maxed out characters.
I'm not a lawyer but i'm pretty sure that this is illegal no matter where you live.
The fact that no one else did this before them is a good indication for that.
The majority of players will play the new class, either out of curiosity or simply because of the charm of novelty but i'm not sure if it will end up as a top tier class like DH did before.
I'm almost certain that any type of blood rune deck will be too slow.
And i'm not sure if frost, unholy or frost unholy decks are fast enough because this will be the deciding factor.
They revealed some very strong cards for hyper aggressive token style decks ( Hawkstrider Rancher e.g.) and other classes like druid still seem to have better ways to utilize them even though we haven't seen their new cards.
Shaman also seems to go that route with the revealed cards.
Warlock already snowballs really fast out of control (like literally out of control).
As much as i would love to see Denthrius gone from the meta, i don't look forward to what he'll get replaced with.
So far everything points towards a hyper aggressive meta with decks that will kill you way before you even have the chance to play one of the more expensive but way cooler cards.
But hey, we haven't seen all of the cards yet. There's still hope.
And i agree with your sentiment about DH.
I'm not a big fan of mana cheating in general and both Druid and DH excell at bypassing the core resource system of the game.
Heavily reducing the mana cost or increasing the amount of mana you have will always cause balance issues.
But the devs apparently still hold on to the idea that i could be done right after all these years.