Hearthpwn

Lakkari Sacrifice: two 3/2 minions every turn is better than one big easily-removed (albeit cool) minion.

Priest of the Feast or Greater Healing Potion

Thanks folks, I appreciate the insights. Looking at the responses reminded me I am already running five 4 mana cost cards, so all things considered the Novice Engineer's "cheap factor" is going to be the best option for this particular deck. I'm using Prophet Velen and Mind Blast to close out games, and cheap cards in the late game help a ton to get opponents in the 20-24 health range I need for lethal.

So, again, thanks! :)

Nice list, but may want to update. The two disenchant cards I would respectfully disagree with are Prophet Velen (obviously awesome in Razakus Priest decks), and Deathwing, Dragonlord (brutal in ramp druid decks).

Hey folks:

I've looked at some really old threads on this topic, but want to see what the current consensus is. I'm playing an anti-aggro leaning Razakus deck and using Bloodmage Thalnos for draw and to pair with Spirit Lash and/or Holy Nova, as well as Acoltye of Pain to straight cycle. I have a card slot that is basically my "on the bubble" slot in which I was running Golakka Crawler for a while, then switched to Wild Pyromancer for a while, but I've come to the conclusion I am probably better served with more drawing power with the decks I'm seeing most often at ranks 10-7 - which is where I'm hitting a wall. 

So, opinions on whether the cheap 2 mana cost draw with a weak 1/1 body I get from Novice Engineer is superior to the 4 mana cost draw with a slightly improved 2/4 board presence I get out of Gnomish Inventor, or vice versa? I've considered and pretty much ruled out Loot Hoarder due to the fact it's deathrattle draw can easily be stolen by Potion of Madness.

Thanks in advance for insights.

Cheers, Bueler

Quote from NightCrawl3r >>

Probably after the HCT tournaments so that people who already practiced and prepared lineups for it don't get screwed over

13 of my last 22 opponents at ranks 9 and 8 were druids: 10 jade and 3 aggro. It's just mind-numbing at this point.

When is this long-overdue patch going live? Anyone know please?

Quote from Hooghout >>

Quote from Lamsednav >>

Everyone whining about Jade and pirates but murlocs are fucking cancer too. 

Jades, Pirates and Murlocs (JPM), but also individual cards constitutes an army of Brodes skill-free archetypes to serve the willingly dumbed down masses, demanding easy winfix for their money. And since that group of players makes the most revenues for Blizzard, you have pretty much all the reasons why salt threads and threads like these exist.

A spit in the face of those who want to play a skillful game. I don't take defenders of this card design mentality that leading up this persistent imbalance and for my part injustice very seriously. Still they write here, collecting their likes of the army of braindead players, as if they were send here to do Brodes bidding It is utterly repulsive and and repugnant to defend things that are not right. Blows my mind.

I compare JPM-players with the army of the dead in GOT. Mindless and not to be reasoned with.

Agreed. What's better is when you get to do it back to back . . . to back, to back, to back, to back, to back. Yeah, just had seven jade druids in a row at rank 5 . . . it's mind numbing. 

I totally understand the OP's frustration, but jade really isn't the problem (as annoying as it is). As I see it, the "broken" feel to playing against druids right now is that Ultimate Infestation allows them to ramp without penalty, which just simply puts the game out of reach for most decks.

Essentially every type of druid just looks to ramp and draw their deck as fast as possible to find an Ultimate Infestation. Based on this reality, pretty much every type of druid is playing way ahead of their opponent when the first Ultimate Infestation does get played - usually to their opponent's face - at which point the druid also gets to armor up, puts a 5/5 minion on the board, and re-fills their hand. Adding insult to injury, odds are the druid will also score an Innervate (or two), so they also get to take a mini Time Warp after the Ultimate Infestation.

Bottom line: If Bliz nerfs a card, it should be Ultimate Infestation, because that's what's causing the warped meta right now.

Wow, Kazakus 10 mana spell for use with Cho'gall, and maybe Krul the Unshackled as an obnoxious overkill finisher?

Holy crap! I stand corrected lol

I was playing a Tavern Brawl with a friend for the 80g quest, and he got Gahz'rilla. He happened to have an Excavated Evil which we traded back and forth, and hilarity ensued. Thanks Yugi :)

Hey Folks:

I just had a mage mirror game where my opponent put up a secret, and because it was early in the game I figured it was probably either Counterspell or Mirror Entity. After much deliberation I decided to my play my own Counterspell (that I'd hoped to save for killing his/her 2nd Ice Block), and his/her secret popped, as it was indeed Counterspell. Which brings me to the philosophical question:

Did I Counterspell his/her Counterspell?

Discuss

P.S. In the interest of total disclosure, yes, I was really baked when I posted l this :) Cheers

(Edited for post script)

Yeah, bad match-up for evolve, because the minions in this deck aren't really relied on to be doing most of the mage's damage, so devolving them may actually help :) lol

The best tip for beating mages who rely heavily on playing secrets to set up their win condition depends on the type of secret it is. I kinda think of them as being in two categories: either "ass saving" secrets or "harassment" secrets.  As I'm sure you know, the two most commonly played are the two "ass savers" shown above, i.e., Ice Barrier and Ice Block). The advice for this category of secrets is simply to go face on the mage and burn through them as fast as you can, because the mage has no way to heal other than to use Alexstrasza on him/herself. Thus, every point of health is precious for secrets mages 'cause once it's gone, it's gone for good :) Most decks use 1 barrier and 2 blocks, but obviously only have two Arcanologist. So if you're able to pop a mage's first block fairly early there's a decent chance they haven't cycled through their deck sufficiently to find the second block. Viola - dead mage :)

My best advice for the "harassment" secrets like Counterspell or Potion of Polymorph is to make the mage 'waste' these secrets on unintended targets to burn them and get them out of play. For example, if the mage you're playing against puts up a secret you think may be Counterspell, throw out The Coin or some other cheap spell to see if the secret bites on it. If so, the mage is pissed because you wasted their secret.  Similarly, if a secret gets put up you think may be Potion of Polymorph, put out a cheap minion or tech that doesn't have value against the mage to try and pop the secret. Both of these examples are essentially just being safe rather than sorry :) 

Cheers

As for the quest rogue card, yeah I hate playing against it and think it's super annoying, but the only thing really wrong with it is that it upgrades minions already on the board. If they changed it so only minions in the deck would be upgraded, or in deck and hand, it would be fine. This is currently the way the druid quest completion is, i.e., only minion cards in the deck become 0 mana cost, but not those in your hand, so there is precedent for this type of moderate nerf.

As for fixing other mechanics, I really like the addition of elementals as a minion, um, race I guess, and wish Bliz would introduce more minion races to the game that have certain innate abilities. Something I would like to see are minion races that maybe have bonus attack or resist against certain other minion races. For example, mechs would be strong against beasts but weak against elementals, or something that eats all the f'ing annoying pirates in meta these days. Whatever. I think it would add a ton of flavor to the game, and allow for way more cards you don't normally see in play getting used.