Hearthpwn

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?

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.

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.

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

As for the "not used to playing against it" . . . that's the game.  When you play a game of chess and you're staring at a mate in 1, if you miss the mate and subsequently lose, saying "I just haven't seen that board state enough times" will get you laughed out of the game.

 

 I would use a different chess analogy here, and then I'll explain why I did. In 2003, Kasparov ended up in a lost situation against Radjabov in the prestigious Linares tournament, but instead of resigning as it is custom, or even playing the game out (which is rather unusual in high-level play, but why not), he just stormed out of the room, forcing Radjabov to wait for Kasparov's time to run out. Imagine having to sit there for 40 or so minutes, knowing that you've won, sure, but most of your - well-earned - fun is ruined by awkwardness or second-hand embarrassment needlessly piled upon you. What Kasparov did was completely within the rules, and he didn't even win by it.

No, Tickatus is not all that strong, certainly not game-breaking. Y'Shaarj is stronger, Jaraxxus is definitely stronger, hell, even Cascading Disaster is stronger. (A fairly good indicator of a certain card's power level is 'Would I pick this in Arena?' And I certainly wouldn't pick Tickatus, even if I did have a fair chance of corrupting him.)

But. Here's how a game of Hearthstone normally works. You put together a deck of 30 cards, and your opponent does the same. Then you are matched up against one another. You both have 30 cards, and 30 health. If you play control, then your main concern is this: if I manage to not die, and use my cards more efficiently than the opponent, then I simply outvalue them and win (either through fatigue, or by overwhelming them by steadily gaining card advantage). If you play aggro, then your game plan is: can I kill the opponent before I run out of resources? In other words, the way I see it, aggro players aren't really playing against the opponent's cards per se, rather against the clock.

All this considered, Tickatus really sucks against aggro, not only because it's low tempo, but because an aggro deck doesn't really care which cards they draw or burn, and they *have* to win by the time they would fatigue against even a miraculous triple Tickatus (i.e. turn 15). Control, on the other hand, does care about the cards in their deck. Still, you can beat Tickatus with other control decks, but then again, that's hardly the point. The point is this: it's painful to see your cards burned even if you weren't going to use them in the first place. Moreover, they are burned regardless of what you do. You can maybe make some plays to ensure your best stuff isn't burned, but still, not the point.

It's important to note that while Tickatus is definitely the worst of the bunch, he's not the first offender by a long shot. Gnomeferatu, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Demonic Project, Unseen Saboteur and even Shenanigans or Skulking Geist mess with your deck and/or hand. Does that mean that these cards are broken? Not at all. Does that mean that these cards annoy the hell out of you if they pull/transform/destroy something from your deck or hand you've been working towards playing the whole game? Yup. And (at least to players like me, who play just for fun, and not for ranking) it's really, really not about winning. I would much rather lose a 50-turn fatigue warrior mirror and have great fun doing so than have my opponent concede because their Dirty Rat pulled my Mecha'thun out on turn 2.

Tl;dr: Tickatus is not broken, but it's extremely annoying to play against with a value/control mindset. Interacting with the board is fair game (that's mostly the point of the game, really), messing with your own hand and deck is perfectly fine, but don't mess with my hand and deck, please. It's not cheating (of course not, Blizzard printed these cards), but it sure feels like it. And obviously I won't stop playing because of stuff like this, nor do I feel burning hatred or anything, but it kind of destroys the point to take the fun out of a game I play, you know, for fun.

I'd be down for a randamonium style brawl that uses this concept as a twist, and work our way up from there. After the brawl, add the mechanic into some solo content, followed by a game-wide event that might last a week or two, and if the reception is good enough, make it a permanent thing.

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.

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

I've been playing this deck quite a bit lately, and enjoying it. It is SURPRISINGLY effective, even though you feel like you are losing most of the game while you teeter on that knife edge... there have been multiple games I almost conceded only to limp along a couple more rounds and pull a win.

I've been really tempted to try slotting in a Enhance-o Mechano, but not sure what I could sub out for it... Was initially thinking Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, but there have been games I used that on my own minions to limp out of lethal against face classes for a turn. The deck I run also has Cult Neophyte, cutting one Spirit Bomb and if you play that well along with a timely Raise'd Dead and then Loatheb on 5, you can cause some inefficient plays from Mages and Warlocks that are really satisfying.

Edit: Off my work computer now, and yeah, something like this speaks pretty loudly as to it's effectiveness.

its feels stronger from classic handlock since you cheat mana so fast that you can pull giants for 0 and play a disruption card (like Loatheb or cult neophyte) on the same turn and lock your opponent out of the game.
its hard to master in order to get high win rate, you need to practice and plan ahead your Glare turns, and also know whats the expected answer by opponent and if need to plan a giants turn combined with Lotheb to prevent AOE.
its very good in high ranks because its good match vs popular Reno priest

"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.

you miss Tamsin for 4* power iwewhelming.

it’s by far the best deck in the format but extremely punishing. You meet the good players only at the beginning of the season outside of legend. And sorry, everything below legend of at least d5 is absolute dumpster with the new rank system. There are only bad players or casual players who play seldom. Reaching legend with homebrew / off meta is very achievable if you know meta and game , I do it every month. 

Dark glare is a very very powerful deck. I've played vs. good dark glare players that turn 4 have a full board with multiple giants. If you've ever lost to a good dark glare player you'd see why it's great. Also they tend to climb fast/more prominent in higher legend. 

Downside is it's very difficult to play, teetering on edge of losing by low HP. Any misplay and you lose. High skill and experience needed. But there's tons of high legend streams of people wrecking w dark glare. Their swing turns are very explosive 

This deck has >50% winrate against most wild archetypesexcept Mozaki and pirate warriors. Granted I suck w dark glare but if you play it a few months and learn it it's very good

### Darkglare Warlock - Wild Meta Snapshot - June 22, 2021

# Class: Warlock

# Format: Wild

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# 2x (0) Raise Dead

# 2x (1) Animated Broomstick

# 1x (1) Crystallizer

# 2x (1) Kobold Librarian

# 2x (1) Power Overwhelming

# 1x (1) Rain of Fire

# 2x (1) Spirit Bomb

# 1x (1) The Soularium

# 2x (1) Tour Guide

# 2x (2) Cheaty Anklebiter

# 2x (2) Darkglare

# 2x (2) Drain Soul

# 2x (3) Backfire

# 1x (3) Tamsin Roame

# 1x (4) Lesser Amethyst Spellstone

# 1x (5) Loatheb

# 2x (8) Flesh Giant

# 2x (20) Molten Giant

#

AAEBAf0GBvr+Au2sA4+CA/LtA4jSAvoODNfOA5XNA/LQAs4G8fcCm80D14kDy7kD56AEk+QDwdED3AoA

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