Hearthpwn

Quote from Addy87 >>

Questlines won't work out if there is too much aggro.

 Well, it depends on the questline itself I think. The warlock one certainly won't, not if you build your deck around it, but if the requisite is something your deck would naturally do, then all you have to invest is your turn one, which you would often pass on anyway, as a control deck.

This one might seem a little broken, but the opponent can play around it if they choose to do so. (Blocks of ice cannot be removed or interacted with, just like in the PVE battle against her.) Questline could be something like 1) play 5 frost spells 2) freeze 5 minions 3) destroy 5 frozen minions (or just 3 or 4 for each, if 5 is too much).

Another one, because I can't help myself. Also because Khadgar is such a cool character, wasted on such a crappy effect (unique, I guess, but definitely not worthy enough). I realise that not all spell schools are normally mage-compatible, but hey, he knows a lot. His questline could perhaps be discovering a certain number of spells (seven, maybe, for the seven schools? might be too easy though), to keep with the theme of his being a scholar and all that. (BTW both KT and Aegwynn should be part of the new set too, obviously, I just forgot to change it in the card maker for them.)

So, I think the questlines are a great idea, but the mage questline reward kind of sucks really, especially compared to the warlock one. These two options just came to my mind as separate cards, but I decided to give them the questline reward statline and cost. Naturally the questline itself would change too, but I'm not sure how exactly. Maybe destroying enemy minions with spells? Could work for both Aegwynn and KT, flavour-wise. (Arcane spells for Aegwynn and Frost spells for KT? Might be a bit too restricting.)

The druid legendary is just a random thought I had, but the Drill Sergeant would be a nice tech card to include in an upcoming set, especially with the abundance of dormant stuff already printed and, presumably, yet to come. It might need some balancing in cost and stats perhaps, but it would have some fun uses with either your or your opponent's dormant stuff. (Somewhat off-topic: do you think The Darkness would count as a dormant card? It doesn't have the keyword, but it does the same thing, no? Well, Witch's Brew doesn't have echo for whatever reason, so who knows.)

Quote from TheNameForgotten >>

Firstly: It can be whatever you want! The stakes are low and a combined deck is something I would find fun. I'd just want it as a tavern brawl and not in standard.

For the sake of argument: Your version seems similar to an Archbishop Benidictus that affects both players. A rogue could create a deck that uses their weapon hero power and a warlock could create a deck that use their draw and self damage. For them, the game might still be fun.

But what about the other player? Once that affect activates, they will probably stop having fun. They want to play their decks and not a different one. They don't want to watch their opponent outdraw them and play their cards.

 True enough, but I think in this current form (regardless of whether it's a battlecry or start of game) it's too weak to be used by a lot of people, and if you only run up against it every once in a while, it's more amusing than surprising for you as well, perhaps. My example would be the comparison of Tickatus and Altar of Fire. Tickatus is annoying as hell, since it destroys your cards, it's not interactive, and it has no drawback for your opponent (even though it is low tempo, especially against aggro). Altar of Fire, however, is only used by a few very specific decks, which are not at all viable for climbing, so it's just for fun. Furthermore, there is a symmetry to the effect, so it doesn't feel so punishing. Slightly off-topic, but I do think it would help with the Tickatus situation if the corrupted version said destroy the top 5 cards of both decks. You could then give it taunt perhaps, to make it slightly less terrible in aggro, and then it would only be used in self-milling decks, where it belongs.

It's mostly RNG, but ultimately you as the opponent do know what to expect half of the time, and you can kinda play around your own deck hopefully. I personally don't mind heavy RNG as long as it's not too powerful (Renounce Darkness is one of my favourite cards, and it's pretty damn weak).

Quote from TheNameForgotten >>

OP: Personally, I'd prefer it if the card made players draw from their opponent's deck after they ran out of cards.

 Yup, it is interesting, that would be just a warlock card then and not dual class. My only problem with it is that it's not nearly as unique, as you could still play the same super control warlock deck and not have to worry about giving Jaraxxus etc. to your opponent. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I feel this should be a Start of Game effect like with Baku and Genn; you as warlock or rogue still draw more from the deck than the opponent, so on average it's a positive effect for you, but you have to build your deck so that there are no game-winning cards in there (Jaraxxus, C'Thun etc.) But as a battlecry, you can still just empty your deck first and not have the drawback, but therefore not have most of the fun either.

I don't play WoW, I just had the idea for the battlecry, and looked up some WoW characters. This guy looked cool, and the entropy theme certainly fits the effect. The class pairing is unusual, but it seemed appropriate.

I have always loved the idea behind this card, and was immesurably disappointed with its execution. It's just so weak; the comparison that comes to mind is Renounce Darkness, which was such a fun card to play -- not too strong, but kind of okay as far as power goes. I like Explore Un'Goro more because I love the discover effect, as it is somewhat controlled randomness, and most of the cards with discover are not really broken either, while still being relevant. Just think of Venomous Scorpid - great card, relevant neutral minion, but doesn't break the game or even comes close to it.

In my opinion, Explore Un'Goro should have had a really unique effect, and perhaps they could have given it away as the promo expansion card, similar to C'Thun, Silas, Galakrond(s) etc. Thematically it just fits so well, too, like a call to action. Plus, I do believe that these promo cards should represent the set as a whole, have a fun effect, be playable, but not be broken (so no Priest Galakrond, for one).

As for the actual card, here is how I imagine it. It's a legendary spell, most likely neutral (I know, neutral spell, bear with me), and works the same way Whizbang and Zayle do, i.e. you put it in your deck, and that's the only card you have there. When the match starts, you have no deck, but instead at the beginning of your turn you discover a card from the Un'Goro expansion (Explore Un'Goro, duh), from any class. Your starting hand could consist of the Choose Your Path cards that the existing version gives you, but I would probably make them cost 0 still. (No danger of 0-mana spells in combos, as you don't build your deck.)

I think this would make a fun and balanced (certainly not too strong, but at least perhaps playable) card, and it fits the theme quite well, too: you abandon the battle to explore, well, Un'Goro, and you use the stuff you come across to fend off your pesky opponent. You would probably lose most of your games, as this is a bit like playing Arena on ladder, but still, at least it's fun. Any thoughts?

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

"best deck" means "best performing deck in the meta", not "it wins against everything"

If you have yet to lose against it, it's probably just because your deck is naturally strong against it, and also you got lucky and also you have a small sample size and also perhaps you're not at a very high rank. That doesn't mean that darkglare can't have the best win rate of all currently played meta decks.

Now, I don't know if this is true or not, but this "myth" as you call it is supported by a lot of competent streamers I know.

Like when Roffle says it's the best deck, he plays more than I do, he is better at the game than I am, so...  I believe him, even though I'm fully aware that it can still be crushed by a variety of decks and even off-meta decks, and that the difference between a 55 and 58% win rate is totally irrelevant to me, but matters a lot to the majority, and impacts the meta accordingly.

You say you play exclusively control. So not only do you play decks that are naturally good against aggro decks like darkglare warlock, you also perform a lot better with control decks than the average guy who plays all archetypes.

I myself have never been very impressed by the deck, even when I lost, it never felt hopeless like some other matchups. I think that's because it's a very consistent deck, as opposed to many decks that rely heavily on draw order or specific combos.

 Yes, myth was definitely not the right choice of word, what I meant by it is that I am yet to witness the strength of the deck for myself. I'm not claiming that my experience overrides statistics and the opinions of professionals, of course, I just never quite "got it", so to speak. As even when I win against other aggro decks, I see what they were doing, and I get that I could have easily lost, whereas with this one, it always seems like they just whiff, even after playing their two waves of giants and their buffed charge guys, which is supposedly their win condition.

As for aggro vs aggro, I never really experienced it first hand, but it seems to me that draw RNG matters a lot in those matchups. That said, it is possible that Darkglare beats other aggro decks, it can have a lot of healing potential after all.

Quote from Chewmass >>

Can you show us the Dead Man's list you use? 
Because I can't get to win against them with such a deck. 

 

 Nothing out of the ordinary, really, but as others stated, I probably win because the non-legend players with Darkglare are likely still practising and not very good yet. Which is great, in my opinion if there is an overpowered deck, it should at least be difficult to master (like patron warrior in its prime).

At any rate, here's my list:

Athletic Studies x1
Eternium Rover x1
Risky Skipper x1
Shield Slam x1
Stage Dive x1
Town Crier x1
Armorsmith x1
Battle Rage x1
Dead Man's Hand x2
Warpath x1
Zephyrs the Great x1
Bladestorm x1
Coerce x1
Shield Block x1
War Cache x1
Kargath Bladefist x1
Outrider's Axe x1
Brawl x1
Stonemaul Anchorman x1
Kresh, Lord of Turtling x1
Reno Jackson x1
Mutanus the Devourer x1
Overlord Saurfang x1
The Curator x1
Deathwing, Mad Aspect x1
Troublemaker x1
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza x1
Rattlegore x1
C'Thun, the Shattered x1

Do bear in mind, though, that this is not a good deck. It's way too greedy, trying to do too many things, but it's just how I like it. (I used to run a Y'Shaarj + Clown package in it as well, but that just made it borderline unplayable, sadly.)

You're probably right, they must all be in legend then. It makes me quite happy if everyone playing competitively is in legend though, allowing us casual plebs to have fun still. I do just tend to play the cards and decks I like regardless of the meta (and I lose a lot, consequently), that's why I was asking.

There is a myth going around that apparently Darkglare warlock is one of the best decks in wild, and, accordingly, a lot of people play it. However, I have yet to lose a *single* game against it, despite going up against it a few dozen times at least in a season. Granted, I'm not a legend player, but I'm mostly around high platinum or low diamond, which means almost exclusively optimized decklists (with some people screwing around, myself included at times).

I understand they can push out some giants early, but let's be honest, classic mode handlock does pretty much the same, except it has a ton of removal and doesn't fatigue on turn 10 or so. All you really have to do is not die for a little bit, and you just auto-win with some removal and healing.

(I play almost exclusively control decks, but a range of those - Rustwix warlock, Dead Man's warrior and elemental frost lich mage; all of them easily kill the Darkglare deck every time.)

As for other aggro decks I'm not sure how their matchups against Darkglare go, but with the same control decks I can easily die to apm mage, evolve shaman, odd- or sometimes secret paladin, secret mage etc. but never to this deck.

I don't think copying decklists is an issue at all, the real problem comes in when a single deck is on a power level of its own, above everything else. When it's so strong that it's not possible to counter. Thinking back to Jade Druid era, literally 80% of people I queued up against played the same list and it could not be defeated. (I mean sure it could, I had like 30-ish % winrate on better days.) This is, however, not the players' fault, and I don't think it's fair to criticize someone for wanting to win in a game where the concept of winning is present. It's the developer's job to balance the meta enough so that no one deck pushes out everything else, and in that regard I think we're in a pretty damn decent spot right now. Sure there's a lot of aggro, but aggro is cheap and efficient, so it will definitely stick around.

That said, I guess it would be nice to have a mode purely for playing your own crazy stuff, but it's just not possible, mostly because it's really hard to define "experimental" and "meta" decks. And even if it were possible, the discrepancy between the power levels of those "experimental" decks is just huge. For instance, my N'zoth - Mecha'thun - Explosive Sheep - Unstable Ghoul - Ticking Abomination - Moonfire OTK Druid literally loses to the expert mage deck in practice mode 50% of the time, and that's totally fine, the point is not to win. I still sometimes queue with it on the safe ranks, and when I get to pull it off every 20 games or so, it blows my mind (and hopefully the opponent's mind as well).

Quote from Kinkyjohnfowler >>

Fear of your cards being burned is just something players really should get used to. It’s just an extra wincon and the more varied wincons are the better and more varied the game is.

 Good point. I guess this is a matter of taste, and it's just my preference is that the win conditions should still be contained within a reasonable framework. With this burning win condition the little 1 mana 1/1 chicken comes to mind that they had scrapped way back in alpha, the one that would deal one damage to whoever moused over it (Auto-Pecker, I think). While it wouldn't have been too strong, it was just way out of the framework they wanted to go with. There was also an effect that flipped the board upside down; also scrapped in alpha.

To go with the chess metaphor, chess arguably doesn't get better if you add off the board win conditions; although chessboxing does exist, and Bobby Fischer himself said (he was pretty old and completely mental at this point, mind you) that regular chess is a boring game and that he'd much rather play the Fischer Random variation, so, you know, it does all come down to different tastes.