It's like playing against bots. The game feels like running in auto-pilot and there are no tools offered to counter their win condition. It makes me wonder why did they bother giving control decks so many tools this expansion? As a Warrior, I can be at full health with 60+ armor and still lose.
It's like playing against bots. The game feels like running in auto-pilot and there are no tools offered to counter their win condition. It makes me wonder why did they bother giving control decks so many tools this expansion? As a Warrior, I can be at full health with 60+ armor and still lose.
If by "as a Warrior" you mean that you play a heavy control deck with either a very slow win condition or the Galvangar OTK as your only win condition, then yeah, that means you are playing the perfect match up for an Owl Lock.
You put no pressure on them, and let them just draw through their deck and into their combo. That's a match up you are SUPPOSED to be weak in.
The results there are about similar as the results Face Hunters and Freeze Shamans have against you, i.e. a very low chance of winning.
Hearthstone these days is about match ups. And this is a bad one for you. But other decks that match up better against Owl Lock, would have weaker match ups against your current deck. In a perfect world this means you have about a 1 in 3 chance to beat Owl Lock, and Owl Lock has about a 1 in 3 chance to beat aggro decks, and aggro decks have about a 1 in 3 chance to beat your Control Warrior.
You have the choice to play the match ups and take losses to bad match ups for granted, or you have to switch decks and play something you don;t mind the bad match ups with. THere's not much else you can do.
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Owl lock is fine. Disruption tools are there: weapon removal delays their combo greatly. You can also mill them with 4mana 5/5 pirate. Or you can just kill them with tempo decks. Also, that deck is vulnerable to big minions. I am playing slow ramp druid and I manage to kill 50% of them. I even survived full double combo (14*8 damage) once, cause I had 80+HP and 5 minions on board. It is no Quest Warlock by any means.
Devolving missiles and hope they don't kill their owl themselves
The most recent deck lists have mana discount through the Mithril Rod and then use something like Grimoire of Sacrifice to immediately kill the owl the turn it's played to get it into the pool for Tamsin's Phylactery. So that is one way to punish poor playing on the Warlock's side, but it's not guaranteed,
My thinking on this deck is that it telegraphs pretty hard just what kind of deck it is, which gives tons of time to adjust tactics to lean into it. As soon as you see Wicked Shipment get traded into the deck, you should be spreading as wide a board as possible and pushing damage, forcing them to burn any AOE cards that would have been eventually used to trigger the imp's deathrattles.
I rather play vs owl lock than the quest nonsense. The deck is easy to beat if you keep the pressure on them from the get go. Currently my best deck against owl lock is beast hunter with ice trap.
The problem isnt the owl boys, its the mana discount of the rod and the minion that doubles damage to other minions (just like the questlock we had before the exp), without them the deck its a tier 2-3, theres no way it can survive to do the combo
Owl lock is powerful and probably a bit too powerful even, but they are beatable and big minions have been my best shot so far. Big DH and frost shaman can line up some massive guys around turn 6. The win is certainly not guaranteed and I think Phylactery should be a neutral spell so that the combo is somewhat restricted, but definitely a nicer opponent than the old quest line mage/warlock
so playing as a shaman how I can counter owl lock?
You need to run weapon removal to slow them down long enough to smash them with your big minions. Also, Frostbite is great tech as it can easily pull off honorable kill against their void tokens and will make their next spell cost 2 more. Also, Cult Neophyte and Far Watch posts will slow them way down.
The problem with phylactery being neutral is that it will still do 56 damage on a full board. The combo now doesn’t need tamsin, so it will come down quicker and more consistently. I think a moarg artificier and school spirits ought to be enough to take care of most boards. Too bad Illucia died for an aggro priest deck…
so playing as a shaman how I can counter owl lock?
You need to run weapon removal to slow them down long enough to smash them with your big minions. Also, Frostbite is great tech as it can easily pull off honorable kill against their void tokens and will make their next spell cost 2 more. Also, Cult Neophyte and Far Watch posts will slow them way down.
So you are saying I can just run 6-8 tech cards and I might be able to slow them down enough to beat them? Seems legit.
The only tech card is rustrot viper and every deck should have that card. If not for owl, for Cariel. Cult neophyte and far watchpost are not tech cards, they are spell and draw hate cards. Their specific use isn’t to counter one combo or deck, but rather tax core game strategies like playing spells and drawing cards. There are very few decks that far watchpost and cult neophyte don’t mess with, and the top two classes top decks rely on weapons heavily, so I think the advice is pretty sound.
They don't run a lot of minions, and the ones they do run tend to get played out quickly, so there's a pretty good chance Mutanus the Devourer will eat an owl.
They don't run a lot of minions, and the ones they do run tend to get played out quickly, so there's a pretty good chance Mutanus the Devourer will eat an owl.
Mutanus in a shaman deck is especially punishing because you can run 2x parrots and if you miss on mutanus, one or both parrots won’t miss.
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It's like playing against bots. The game feels like running in auto-pilot and there are no tools offered to counter their win condition. It makes me wonder why did they bother giving control decks so many tools this expansion? As a Warrior, I can be at full health with 60+ armor and still lose.
If by "as a Warrior" you mean that you play a heavy control deck with either a very slow win condition or the Galvangar OTK as your only win condition, then yeah, that means you are playing the perfect match up for an Owl Lock.
You put no pressure on them, and let them just draw through their deck and into their combo. That's a match up you are SUPPOSED to be weak in.
The results there are about similar as the results Face Hunters and Freeze Shamans have against you, i.e. a very low chance of winning.
Hearthstone these days is about match ups. And this is a bad one for you. But other decks that match up better against Owl Lock, would have weaker match ups against your current deck. In a perfect world this means you have about a 1 in 3 chance to beat Owl Lock, and Owl Lock has about a 1 in 3 chance to beat aggro decks, and aggro decks have about a 1 in 3 chance to beat your Control Warrior.
You have the choice to play the match ups and take losses to bad match ups for granted, or you have to switch decks and play something you don;t mind the bad match ups with. THere's not much else you can do.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
so playing as a shaman how I can counter owl lock?
Owl lock is fine. Disruption tools are there: weapon removal delays their combo greatly. You can also mill them with 4mana 5/5 pirate. Or you can just kill them with tempo decks. Also, that deck is vulnerable to big minions. I am playing slow ramp druid and I manage to kill 50% of them. I even survived full double combo (14*8 damage) once, cause I had 80+HP and 5 minions on board. It is no Quest Warlock by any means.
Pressure him with damage. If your deck cannot do that, you'll likely lose, as you are supposed to. Otherwise, your deck would have no counters.
Devolving missiles and hope they don't kill their owl themselves
The most recent deck lists have mana discount through the Mithril Rod and then use something like Grimoire of Sacrifice to immediately kill the owl the turn it's played to get it into the pool for Tamsin's Phylactery. So that is one way to punish poor playing on the Warlock's side, but it's not guaranteed,
My thinking on this deck is that it telegraphs pretty hard just what kind of deck it is, which gives tons of time to adjust tactics to lean into it. As soon as you see Wicked Shipment get traded into the deck, you should be spreading as wide a board as possible and pushing damage, forcing them to burn any AOE cards that would have been eventually used to trigger the imp's deathrattles.
Obviously a nerf is in order; but I hope they don't overdo it.
Dependable loan sharks since 1960. We sink our teeth into every deal we make.
Removing the "Shadow" spell tag will be enough I think, at least then you have to have a full board to OTK someone giving the opponent a bit more time
Turn them into frog 🐸
I rather play vs owl lock than the quest nonsense. The deck is easy to beat if you keep the pressure on them from the get go. Currently my best deck against owl lock is beast hunter with ice trap.
new Paladin hero is great against them too
won a game today I thought i lost for sure thanks to halving the damage and putting up a huge board
The problem isnt the owl boys, its the mana discount of the rod and the minion that doubles damage to other minions (just like the questlock we had before the exp), without them the deck its a tier 2-3, theres no way it can survive to do the combo
Owl lock is powerful and probably a bit too powerful even, but they are beatable and big minions have been my best shot so far. Big DH and frost shaman can line up some massive guys around turn 6. The win is certainly not guaranteed and I think Phylactery should be a neutral spell so that the combo is somewhat restricted, but definitely a nicer opponent than the old quest line mage/warlock
You need to run weapon removal to slow them down long enough to smash them with your big minions. Also, Frostbite is great tech as it can easily pull off honorable kill against their void tokens and will make their next spell cost 2 more. Also, Cult Neophyte and Far Watch posts will slow them way down.
The problem with phylactery being neutral is that it will still do 56 damage on a full board. The combo now doesn’t need tamsin, so it will come down quicker and more consistently. I think a moarg artificier and school spirits ought to be enough to take care of most boards. Too bad Illucia died for an aggro priest deck…
So you are saying I can just run 6-8 tech cards and I might be able to slow them down enough to beat them? Seems legit.
The only tech card is rustrot viper and every deck should have that card. If not for owl, for Cariel. Cult neophyte and far watchpost are not tech cards, they are spell and draw hate cards. Their specific use isn’t to counter one combo or deck, but rather tax core game strategies like playing spells and drawing cards. There are very few decks that far watchpost and cult neophyte don’t mess with, and the top two classes top decks rely on weapons heavily, so I think the advice is pretty sound.
They don't run a lot of minions, and the ones they do run tend to get played out quickly, so there's a pretty good chance Mutanus the Devourer will eat an owl.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Mutanus in a shaman deck is especially punishing because you can run 2x parrots and if you miss on mutanus, one or both parrots won’t miss.