I usually have to netdeck to go from D10 to D5 each month, but I just made it with a home brew deck. Feels good! This Reno mage has been pretty fun, and it has a decent chance against Warrior, Mech Mage, and Ramp Druid.
It's been a while since I've had this much fun with this game, since the last nerfs I'm facing a wide variety of decks, and honestly I don't see almost anything unbalanced, I'm having good experiences playing with several decks, especially burn shaman, control paladin/warrior and some mage decks, good job devs, but please fix that Brann+Azshara and Nellie bug.
Playing for 4 last dys with big spell mage and watching with amusement how all top streamers just pounced on it right afters nerfs went live and discover little life pleasures like playing parrot after 0 mana rune turn 6...
So the nerfs hit, I open my collection and disenchant my golden Cariel, and start looking for substitutes for my Highlander Paladin. My eyes hit Protect the Innocent, and I start wondering whether I ever put that in my Healadin list.
I open my folder of HS decks and navigate to paladin decks. Healadin, last edited in 2021, Tempo Healadin, last edited in 2020, etc. and looking through different iterations of this deck, I indeed find no Protect the Innocent. Time to fix that: choosing the tempo version of the deck, I throw Injured Blademasters in with Rally!, and head straight for ranked.
The match opens with my opponent playing priest. I, however, pay little mind to this, focusing more on my own mana curve. I keep Injured Tol'vir and Corpsetaker, throwing Crystalsmith Kangor and Wickerflame Burnbristle back in the deck to keep the Corpsetaker active. Opponent, curiously, skips turn 1 - most priests at lower ranks play some quest decks - I coin out the Tol'vir and heal it with Flash of Light the next turn, while my opponent plays Kobold Sandtrooper and the usual reborn and resurrect stuff. I start thinking I may have a chance at winning, as long as Xyrella, the Devout doesn't OTK me.
While I skip my turn 3 hoping I hadn't drawn all my 4-drops, the opponent goes for a curveball: Selfish Shellfish. Healing my way out of this may not be an option, but I'm still a tempo deck, so maybe the game isn't over yet. I decide to play my Corpsetaker sooner rather than later, lest I might draw the very activators for it I decided to not keep in mulligan. Shard of the Naaru negates both my plans to stop the Shellfish from hitting me and to restore the damage taken thus far, and things keep getting more worrying by the minute: both Embalming Ritual and Grave Rune get cast on the Shellfish, while my Call to Arms seriously lowrolls with two Injured Kvaldirs and a Mistress of Mixtures.
It is only on turn 6 that my luck seems to turn: I topdeck the long awaited Protect the Innocent! Furthermore, a silver lining appears to my last turn, as while I don't have mana to cast Flash of Light to activate PtI, I can trade with the Mistress. In a rather rude manner, of course, the aforementioned Shellfish introduce themselves to the 5/5 Defenders.
The situation is, at this point, that I at least have the card advantage, if nothing else. My hand is full, and both my Blademasters get milled so Rally is near useless now, but my opponent seems to be lacking in draw engines of their own. As an occasional player of Mill Priest myself, I'm familiar with the issue. Due to the card advantage I have, I have double Zandalari Templars and Lesser Pearl Spellstones ready to go, and behind these taunts I manage to stick Crystalsmith Kangor. A couple turns forward, it's time to drop High Priest Thekal - the armor will be necessary at any moment.
As a side note, some of you will be wondering, did I also drop my Molten Giants at this point, and the answer is no, because that is simply not the game plan with this deck. Thekal exists to enable my healing and get me armor, and the goal is to be at full health for most of the game, so Molten Giants would be literally unplayable and dead draws in most matches.
With Kangor safe behind taunts and board control irreversibly on my side, it is now the opponent that assumes the defensive role. Good ol' Bloodmage Thalnos + Spirit Lash maybe buys them a turn while looking for their Xyrella, but I now have plenty of armor to go with a good amount of health as well. Four dead Shellfish should mean I don't die immediately even in fatigue, but how many Sandtroopers were there? Three? I get my answer when the opponent drops the Xyrella at 16 health - I have 21 attack showing.
I lose what remains of my deck, take around 20 damage in fatigue, and the Sandtroopers almost get the rest. I'm alive, but with Xyrella's hero power, I don't have lethal either. My turn starts, and with one more fatigue drawn, I'm at 4 health. This is no issue at all for Kangor - Amber Watcher, Truesilver Champion and Burnbristle carry me back to 30. Even Truesilver Champion doesn't give me lethal, though.
So there we are: I'm up to my waist in fatigue damage, but I, very much unlike my opponent, have health, minions, and cards to work with. What can the opponent turn the tables with? The answer I didn't expect from a priest was Coldlight Oracle - forget my waistline, I'm up to my shoulders in fatigue now! 6, 7, 5 damage from hero power, and 8 - I live, at 4 health. A swift swing from Truesilver Champion closes the game while my opponent concedes mid-attack animation.
Just won an awesome arena match. For multiple turns, while nearing fatigue, my opponent was on 3 health, had the board and I was holding a useless randomly generated Ectomancy, but managed to draw out the game. Finally it came down to a 50/50, whether Baba Naga was my fourth or third last card. I won the coinflip, drew Baba Naga, activated it with Ectomancy (probably the best Ectomancy in Hearthstone history) and won.
I usually have to netdeck to go from D10 to D5 each month, but I just made it with a home brew deck. Feels good! This Reno mage has been pretty fun, and it has a decent chance against Warrior, Mech Mage, and Ramp Druid.
Finished 1st place for the first time in BG
Noice.
It's been a while since I've had this much fun with this game, since the last nerfs I'm facing a wide variety of decks, and honestly I don't see almost anything unbalanced, I'm having good experiences playing with several decks, especially burn shaman, control paladin/warrior and some mage decks, good job devs, but please fix that Brann+Azshara and Nellie bug.
I lost, but look at all those Colossi.
This guy roped me every turn with 0 wins in arena. Thought was gonna lose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZsQSu0n3sI
Taintheart Tormenter drawn by Varian, King of Stormwind, generated by The Fires of Zin-Azshari generated by Hench-Clan Burglar.
After a nerf-wracking 25 mins control warrior vs control warrior match I finally made it to my first time being in the top 1000 legend.
you are right
Playing for 4 last dys with big spell mage and watching with amusement how all top streamers just pounced on it right afters nerfs went live and discover little life pleasures like playing parrot after 0 mana rune turn 6...
So the nerfs hit, I open my collection and disenchant my golden Cariel, and start looking for substitutes for my Highlander Paladin. My eyes hit Protect the Innocent, and I start wondering whether I ever put that in my Healadin list.
I open my folder of HS decks and navigate to paladin decks. Healadin, last edited in 2021, Tempo Healadin, last edited in 2020, etc. and looking through different iterations of this deck, I indeed find no Protect the Innocent. Time to fix that: choosing the tempo version of the deck, I throw Injured Blademasters in with Rally!, and head straight for ranked.
The match opens with my opponent playing priest. I, however, pay little mind to this, focusing more on my own mana curve. I keep Injured Tol'vir and Corpsetaker, throwing Crystalsmith Kangor and Wickerflame Burnbristle back in the deck to keep the Corpsetaker active. Opponent, curiously, skips turn 1 - most priests at lower ranks play some quest decks - I coin out the Tol'vir and heal it with Flash of Light the next turn, while my opponent plays Kobold Sandtrooper and the usual reborn and resurrect stuff. I start thinking I may have a chance at winning, as long as Xyrella, the Devout doesn't OTK me.
While I skip my turn 3 hoping I hadn't drawn all my 4-drops, the opponent goes for a curveball: Selfish Shellfish. Healing my way out of this may not be an option, but I'm still a tempo deck, so maybe the game isn't over yet. I decide to play my Corpsetaker sooner rather than later, lest I might draw the very activators for it I decided to not keep in mulligan. Shard of the Naaru negates both my plans to stop the Shellfish from hitting me and to restore the damage taken thus far, and things keep getting more worrying by the minute: both Embalming Ritual and Grave Rune get cast on the Shellfish, while my Call to Arms seriously lowrolls with two Injured Kvaldirs and a Mistress of Mixtures.
It is only on turn 6 that my luck seems to turn: I topdeck the long awaited Protect the Innocent! Furthermore, a silver lining appears to my last turn, as while I don't have mana to cast Flash of Light to activate PtI, I can trade with the Mistress. In a rather rude manner, of course, the aforementioned Shellfish introduce themselves to the 5/5 Defenders.
The situation is, at this point, that I at least have the card advantage, if nothing else. My hand is full, and both my Blademasters get milled so Rally is near useless now, but my opponent seems to be lacking in draw engines of their own. As an occasional player of Mill Priest myself, I'm familiar with the issue. Due to the card advantage I have, I have double Zandalari Templars and Lesser Pearl Spellstones ready to go, and behind these taunts I manage to stick Crystalsmith Kangor. A couple turns forward, it's time to drop High Priest Thekal - the armor will be necessary at any moment.
As a side note, some of you will be wondering, did I also drop my Molten Giants at this point, and the answer is no, because that is simply not the game plan with this deck. Thekal exists to enable my healing and get me armor, and the goal is to be at full health for most of the game, so Molten Giants would be literally unplayable and dead draws in most matches.
With Kangor safe behind taunts and board control irreversibly on my side, it is now the opponent that assumes the defensive role. Good ol' Bloodmage Thalnos + Spirit Lash maybe buys them a turn while looking for their Xyrella, but I now have plenty of armor to go with a good amount of health as well. Four dead Shellfish should mean I don't die immediately even in fatigue, but how many Sandtroopers were there? Three? I get my answer when the opponent drops the Xyrella at 16 health - I have 21 attack showing.
I lose what remains of my deck, take around 20 damage in fatigue, and the Sandtroopers almost get the rest. I'm alive, but with Xyrella's hero power, I don't have lethal either. My turn starts, and with one more fatigue drawn, I'm at 4 health. This is no issue at all for Kangor - Amber Watcher, Truesilver Champion and Burnbristle carry me back to 30. Even Truesilver Champion doesn't give me lethal, though.
So there we are: I'm up to my waist in fatigue damage, but I, very much unlike my opponent, have health, minions, and cards to work with. What can the opponent turn the tables with? The answer I didn't expect from a priest was Coldlight Oracle - forget my waistline, I'm up to my shoulders in fatigue now! 6, 7, 5 damage from hero power, and 8 - I live, at 4 health. A swift swing from Truesilver Champion closes the game while my opponent concedes mid-attack animation.
Just won an awesome arena match. For multiple turns, while nearing fatigue, my opponent was on 3 health, had the board and I was holding a useless randomly generated Ectomancy, but managed to draw out the game. Finally it came down to a 50/50, whether Baba Naga was my fourth or third last card. I won the coinflip, drew Baba Naga, activated it with Ectomancy (probably the best Ectomancy in Hearthstone history) and won.