Hearthpwn

I swore that during the holiday break between the last week of Dec and the first week of Jan, there were nothing but zoolock bots on the ladder. I created an anti-zoo warrior that was heavy on 2-damage removal and even ran Millhouse Manastorm because zoo's only spells are soulfire and mortal coil.

I think after I got to legend in Jan with the 11-star bonus (around rank 700) I was only seeing Control Warriors, so I switched to a greedy Paladin deck that can deal with all warrior's threats and still have cards and health left over. My theory was that blizzard has like one person who actions all the "botting" in-game reports and that person was on holiday until the 2nd week of Jan. But of course that's just speculation.

This month, I had the 10-star bonus, and until I got to diamond 5 there were very few bots, a good mix of other players' decks too. Druids and Rogues (which are harder for the Warrior). From diamond 5 to legend it was nothing but bots - all weird ones too (not all zoolock), with basic cards, mostly 1-and-2 drops and stormwind champions. I've heard that when your star bonus runs out (for 10-stars that's diamond 5) you start seeing the other players who are also at diamond 5 instead of players who match your MMR, so I'm guessing that's why it changed so suddenly. Since I got to legend it's back to being mixed, although there are still some zoobots there this month.

If you want a good, multi-purpose deck to get to legend in classic, I've been using this one. It can beat most any zoolock unless you draw all your top-end cards and whiff on fiery war axe. It's greedy enough to stand a chance against the other warriors. If you tech too hard against zoo you will lose all the mirrors. And the other matchups are not unwinnable (although Rogue can almost always draw through their deck before you can pressure them enough or armour out of range of leeroy/cold blood/shadowstep stuff).

### Classic Midrange
# Class: Warrior
# Format: Classic
#
# 2x (1) Execute
# 2x (1) Shield Slam
# 2x (1) Whirlwind
# 2x (2) Armorsmith
# 2x (2) Cruel Taskmaster
# 2x (2) Fiery War Axe
# 1x (2) Slam
# 2x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 1x (3) Big Game Hunter
# 2x (3) Shield Block
# 2x (4) Kor'kron Elite
# 1x (5) Azure Drake
# 1x (5) Brawl
# 1x (5) Harrison Jones
# 1x (6) Cairne Bloodhoof
# 1x (6) Sylvanas Windrunner
# 1x (7) Baron Geddon
# 1x (7) Gorehowl
# 1x (8) Grommash Hellscream
# 1x (8) Ragnaros the Firelord
# 1x (9) Alexstrasza
#
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#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

As far as the situation where you literally have already collected every single standard card and you didn't dust any nerfed cards, it's still better to wait on your standard packs. After opening 145 Alterac Valley packs, you're guaranteed to get all the commons and rares, and extremely likely to have all the epics already, but there's virtually no chance you could have all the legendaries (unless you craft a bunch of them). So your standard packs will only give you Alterac Valley legendaries - 54 packs would average out to 2-3 legendaries so you're better off opening those after the new expansion launches.

edit: I looked up the epics and there are 25 of them -- but you would want 2 of each so actually you wouldn't have all of those even after opening 145 expansion packs and 54 standard packs. But you would be close. Epics are about 1 per 5 packs so you need around 250 to get all of them.

If you really want all the cards, it doesn't matter too much whether you open expansion packs or standard packs. Because of duplicate protection, you always get cards you haven't collected yet. If you want them all, it seems to me that standard packs are better all around, since you have a chance of opening cards you don't have from the older expansions as well.

The real decision point comes in if you're not really expecting to get all the cards, then you would want to think about which expansion has cards you're missing that you want more, that are played in more decks, etc. In that case you could target those expansions' packs instead of going for the diluted pool of standard packs.

I'm also the type that wants to get all the cards, and my technique since the standard packs came out is to only buy standard packs, other than expansion pre-orders and discounted bundles. My gold is going 100% to standard packs. For me, I always dust the nerfed cards, so buying standard packs give me a shot at filling in commons and rares that I dusted in the past that may someday be useful (or un-nerfed). For example, I'm still hoping to open up a couple of Swords of the Fallen, since the card is playable even after the nerf, but I never re-crafted it.

I've been playing a lot of wild this week and keep getting pummeled by everyone with the pirate warrior questline, whether it's the control flavour or the face flavour. I remembered this thread and I just want to go on the record saying "I was wrong". The questline is absolutely owning wild right now, especially since the buffs to warrior's pirates, and it looks like the miniset that's about to drop is going to make it even better. No regrets if you crafted this one.

Just to throw a contrary voice in, I'm still not 100% convinced that the Pirate Warrior deck in wild really needs the quest. Drawing the weapon and dealing two damage twice are great rewards for doing what your deck wants to do anyway. But for tempo decks, giving up a mulligan slot, and also your turn 1 play are both big punishes.

I wonder if the Pirate Warrior without the quest could do better in wild? It may not last as long against control, but some control decks can completely bury a tempo deck by the midgame anyway (the current celestial alignment/mecha'thun druid for example). Normally you can check whether a card is a low performer in a good deck by looking at the difference between the deck's winrate and the card's played winrate, but it doesn't work for quests because you always play the quest on 1.

I checked HSreplay, but they only have 1 pirate warrior in wild for the last 30 days without the quest, and it has a really low sample size. The winrate is 52% against the other pirate quest warriors which are 62%-ish. The meta has a way of figuring things out over time. Maybe this is all a sign that the quest is really good and it's a safe craft after all. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if it drops off eventually as better and better tempo pirates get printed over time.

I so want a deck like this to work. It's just my style. But I tried a couple of games with it, and it just feels like it loses -- aggro buries it in card disadvantage, control decks can starve it out, and fast combo decks (like the phoenix burn mage) aren't under enough pressure while they assemble pieces. Maybe if there were a fair mid-range deck, or a slow combo, this could play fair against it. I didn't face any hunters, maybe it can thread the needle against a face hunter using a well-timed Apotheosis.

I'm really hoping the un-nerf of Power Word: Shield is going to help out this style of tempo priest. But that's still just "draw 1 card". For tempo priest to take off, it needs some crazy 2-or-3-mana "draw 3 cards" that so many other classes have now (Druid, Mage, Rogue, Warlock, Demon Hunter).

I just tried this and the Grizzled Wizard battlecry does nothing. Neither your hero power nor the boss's hero power is affected.

Quote from XmP69 >>

golden Chameleos 

This is mine as well, I crafted it on release day of the Witchwood. At the time I thought it would fit right into my Spiteful Priest deck. That lasted for about a month or so until Spiteful Summoner was nerfed. And Chameleos didn't even work in that deck, I think I cut it after a few days. :'( It's just been sitting in my collection ever since.

I just took it out for a spin with a Dragon Highlander Priest. Turned it into an Emerald Explorer and managed to fatigue an Embiggen Druid to death, but lost the other games.

This is a bug, I thought it was pretty well known. It's been happening to me now and then since around the Descent of Dragons release patch, or maybe the Doom in the Tomb one. One time, I was in the middle of an arena draft and it gave me the non-golden versions of the basic cards because it didn't think I had any in my collection.

Anyway it just seems to be an issue loading the collection where the basic cards vanish. They come back when you close the client and open it up again.

Highlander Hunter will be alive in some form or another, even after the rotation. The core cards: Brann, Zephrys, and Dragonqueen are all surviving this rotation.

Thing is, you don't necessarily need both Veranus and Dragonsbane to make Highlander Hunter work. I made it from rank 8-5 this month with a traditional (non-dragon) Secret Highlander Hunter, going about 12-2 (after plenty of losing with other decks mind you).

Also, considering that all of the top 3 archetypes right now are Hunter, there's a strong chance some part of the current core package would get nerfed or Hall of Fame'd. So it depends on how closely you need to guard your dust -- the Hall of Fame announcement is only a week or two away most likely.

I just thought the deck was interesting, because the discard cards are mostly more powerfull than other same mana cards because of their adverse effect, so i thought u could gain advantage there, and meanwhile u can complete ur quest, to be even more powerfull. In that case, i was thinking more of a midrange ending. I don't want the real aggro version of the deck, because i like to have an endgame, and if i wanted to be aggro, there are other better options now.

I think this is what people have been wishing for from Lakkari Sacrifice since it was printed. It's just that the reward isn't strong enough to carry the mid-to-late-game. I'm guessing Blizzard didn't want to make the quest reward too good -- they would have had the same issue they had with The Caverns Below, where the reward was too strong and they had to nerf it twice.

As far as the Treachery idea, I think you want to play that one as a control deck which just has Howlfiend and Treachery in it, then try to set up a board that can be cleared with Defile, then Howlfiend/Treachery/Defile, clear their board, discard their hand. I've definitely been on the receiving end of that one and it doesn't feel good! Anyway you probably don't want to discard any of your own cards in that deck. Same with Mecha'thun, you can't afford to ever discard anything in case Mecha'thun is in hand. I don't know if it counts the nether portal as being in your hand after you cataclysm, but there's no point in having a late-game if you've already won the game with Mecha'thun.

But maybe after reading ur whole text, disco lock is maybe not worth making it :(. I made a shudder, and altho it's really not that bad, i keep losing vs all this (lucky >_>) aggro, even when i put enough heal and clears in the deck ;-; , and this makes me feel sad sometimes. I like to play fun decks, but if u lose 80% of your games, i start experiencing very less fun, and i think this will also be the case with the discolock :/

My thoughts exactly. I looked at my game log, last time I tried out discolock (after Jeklik was printed), I was just barely winning half my games, then lost four in a row, and gave up at that point. The fun goes away if you're always losing.

I'm not on EU, but I used to love Discard Warlock and always wished I could make it work.

There are a few directions you can take the archetype. Unfortunately, none of them were ever really strong enough to play in the standard meta, and the current wild meta is even more challenging, since you have to be able to survive intense aggro (Pirate Warrior, Odd Rogue, and of course, the omni-present Secret Burn Mage), as well as infinite late-game value (Reno Hunter with Deathstalker Rexxar, Reno Mage with Frost Lich Jaina, Jade Druid). Not to mention things like the Shudderwock Shaman with Loatheb which can generate a board full of 6/6s and set all your spells to +10 mana, locking you out as soon as they've drawn Shudderwock and set up that combo.

But as far as the Discardlock itself, you've got the traditional build with discard activators: Doomguard, Lakkari Felhound, Soularium, Darkshire Librarian, Howlfiend, and now Expired Merchant. And then you have the discard targets, like Clutchmother Zavas, Silverware Golem, Fist of Jaraxxus, and High Priestess Jeklik. Throw in Malchezar's Imp & Soulwarden. Then you hope that when you start discarding cards, you discard the targets and not the Soulwardens. You may win a couple of games here and there, and if you can still have fun while losing the majority of your games, this deck could be where it's at! Though I actually think you would want to play this sort of like a Zoo Warlock, and in that case it's actually better without the quest itself...

A totally different direction you can go would be to have no discard activators at all, and just play a Reno Control Warlock with Lakkari Sacrifice and one Cataclysm. You mulligan the quest unless you know you're facing control, and later do the whole thing by playing the quest, cataclysm and discarding your whole hand to surprise your enemy. Firebat did a deck doctor on this one time, the deck was called "Panic at the Discard":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42FQ0v8ojgs

This was a standard deck after Reno had rotated out (Witchwood era), but in wild of course you would play the Reno Control Warlock shell around it. Again, you can probably have fun with this deck, and you might get more wins if you happen to hit Reno on curve against some hard aggro decks if they don't burst you down before turn 6. In the control matchups, I'm not sure the Nether Portal would carry you in the late-game...

Could try HSReplay to look at the data directly -- or think about which class is your favourite and target the expansion that had the best legendaries for that class?

Another thing to keep in mind is that there is a nerf that's still live right now. If you buy any packs from this year, there's a chance at getting a nerfed card which you can disenchant immediately for full dust. The four cards are:

Sludge Slurper (RoS), Mogu Fleshshaper (SoU), Corrupt Elementalist (DoD), and Faceless Corruptor (DoD)

All of those are rares, so there's a good chance of hitting some of them, whichever set you choose.

Hearthstone Mathematics does really good analyses of this question, they did one for Rise of Shadows and one for Saviors of Uldum. Unfortunately, they haven't analysed the data from Descent of Dragons yet, but the Uldum video would still have some useful info:

Hearthstone Mathematics

At the time, they said that Saviors Packs were nearly twice as likely to give you cards that you would use in the meta as Rise of Shadows. But when RoS came out, it was by far the most influential set (although that was partially because the entire Year of the Raven had weak expansions and everything else had just rotated out).

There are still a lot of Uldum cards in the meta -- one thing I have noticed about Descent of Dragons is that the epic cards are a little weaker/less represented, which makes it an easier set to craft from.

Worked like a charm! 1st try, thanks!