Hearthpwn

Quote from RushingMonkey >>

Quote from Geoff >>

They have similar match-ups. Both get destroyed by Priest and Demon Hunter (so not the best choice of class at all), both have good match-ups vs Warlock and Druid.

 Totem Shaman definitely doesn't get destroyed by Priest, in fact I'd say it's one of his best matchup. They just let you play everything and that turn 5 Convincing Infiltrator on a wide board is basically irrelevant and you have lethal the turn after. Druid is a similar story.

You're right about DH tho, literally impossible, you can't get anything to stick to the board while he fills up his own. Warlocks feels even, Dark Skies and Plague hurts but it's a matter of timing.

 You are right, I should have written that they both destroy Priest - doesn't change the fact match-ups are identical for both versions, but I still confused the decks.

Overall:

Priest - win for both versions

Galakrond Lock - can go either way in both cases, but I'd say slightly favored

DH (any version) - both get CRUSHED

Druid (all versions) - favorable for both

The game simply became too swingy and Galakrond is one of the offenders. It's one of those cards, which offers an insane value upon entrace and to be honest I am tired of swings in this game. If the game is supposed to be turned upside down in a single turn, it should be because of something more than just drawing one card.

And for the fact it is good for the new players - we can talk about this even though it wasn't my intention. Adventure is by no means free. To have it, you need a significant amount of gold. Show me a newbie who upon starting the game can afford an Adventure. They will need to farm the gold.

It's good for budget players. Not for new players. It's a budget option to build a  relatively strong deck for low ranks, but doesn't make an entry barrier any lower. One could even argue it makes it bigger, because now your opponents on lower ranks will be those budget Galakrods, which should pretty much demolish any basic newbie deck 10 out of 10 times.

Quote from PetvaiS >>

Would you take the time to make emails and accounts and beat the tutorial so many times for full collection? I meant trading not giving away free.

 People farmed Illidan to 500 (oh well, 499 because of a bug) wins within first few days after its release. Yes, HS players would use any sort of exploit. Tons of people with their priorities in life massively fucked up, play online games. This isn't even remotely hard for a standard player, not even talking about hardcore nerds.

And there are tons of other issues, like streamers giving away cards for free just to get popular, or for subs, or just because they feel like it, since they pretty much have every card in the game at their disposal and they don't even care. Groups of friends mergin their accounts into one. The possibilities are endless.

And it would make Blizzard's profits from packs significantly lower, so what's even the point of the discussion? As a company, it primarily is meant to make money. Nothing else.

Tons of potential to abuse. It would be the end of HS.

I've been watching some games of other people recently as I didn't really want to play myself in this meta. And it seems no one I watched was able to get any significant success with Spell Druid. Yes, it can do some crazy things. It looks ridiculous on paper, it has unbelievably strong turns.

But in the end it simply doesn't win. It has small win rate considering, what it can do. Why would you nerf a deck which isn't even close to the top? Just because it stomps all weak tier 3 and lower decks? Yes, it does, they probably won't be able to deal with onslaught of boards it can create.

But meta deals nicely. So give me one reason to nerf a deck, which is like 10th best? Taking only statistics into account Totem Shaman should be nerfed firstly.

Quote from DjGrapejuice900 >>

You think having a single 8 cost can’t attack 8/8 That deals 8 once is wayyyy better then a 7 cost 6/7 that CAN attack, deals 6 dmg every turn,  you have 2, it can wipe a board of swarm minions, you could discover 1 or two more of, that can be cheated out for 5 mana twice a game. I must be missing something here cause I don’t see how you think those compare. 

 Reliability, you are missing reliability. Priestess cannot kill a single minion with health above 3 (unless you are lucky, then it can maybe kill a 4-, 5- health minion), nor it can deal with 2 of similar health values. The nightmare scenario is that you drop her vs 2 3-health minions and they both live. 

As usual, there is no clear answer. Both have their pros and cons. Rag can kill huge minions and can provide lethal through full boards (if you are lucky). Priestess can clear few smaller minions, as well as can attack. Rag cannot attack, but Priestess cannot kill anything significant. So whichever is better depends only on your preference and the actual meta.

DH doesn't generally have problems dealing with wide boards, having tons of removals, most of which it doesn't even play (including Priestess at the moment). Saying that it's better than Rag is simply stupid. It's better... in some aspects. And Rag is better in some.

The problem is unless they are already in hand this will also get rid of Alex and Zeph.

I honestly don't think it's useful. Firstly because of the aforementioned. Secondly - if you let Priest to freely spam reborns and fill your deck with Albatrosses, you are probably already f***ed up and this card won't help you. On the other hand, you can't really afford having dead card in your hand vs all other match-ups. It cloggs your hand  - and more importantly every value you can get matters in current hearthstone.

Too big of a price to deal with just Albatross from Priest.

In Mage I run Polymorph - sometimes works very nicely. I don't know what would be the counter for Spell Druid and Paladin to run, but this wouldn't work too, because a) it's a minion b) it's not a paladin card.

 EDIT: One more thing - this can give you duplicates.

 There are pretty much threds contradicting themselves:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/duplicate-protection-and-golden-cards/27328 - this one says golden and no-golden are treated as a playset

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/duplicate-protection-feedback-golden-cards/27518/8 - this one supports the claim, that goldens are treated separately

And in both cases, it's only players discussing without any actual source. I believe it would be logical for goldens to count as owned copies, but on the other hand I was told that goldens count separately. 

I guess there's no clear answer without official source (which possibly exists somewhere there)

Quote from FelyHS >>

Unlike stated above you can safely DE your golden legendary and you won‘t unpack it. Not golden, not regular. That forum post Geoff linked even supports this, unlike Geoff says.

 I actually pasted the wrong link - meant to paste the one I am posting here.

Only a forum thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/6rhw7b/can_you_get_golden_legend_duplicates_after_the/ It probably had to be confirmed officially somewhere, since it's pretty much commonly agreed now that it works this way, but I unfortunately do not follow any Blizzard's social media or forums or articles.

They have similar match-ups. Both get destroyed by Priest and Demon Hunter (so not the best choice of class at all), both have good match-ups vs Warlock and Druid.

So I would say it doesn't really matter, just pick the funnier one. I'd personally go with Galakrond Evolve, simply because Totem is just a glorified aggro, which does not suit my playstyle and in my opinion is weaker versus random decks outside top 4. But talking strictly about meta match-ups, they pretty much both loose and win against the same decks.

Unless you have all other cards from the set, you will not.

EDIT: As Vagachi said, golden cards are treated separately. So you will still be able to get its normal version, unless you have it.

Not gonna defend DH, but Rag is a hard removal and a lethal possibility at the same time. People saying that Priestess is better, because it can clear boards are simply biased. Yeah, Priestes can clear few smaller minions. But what if they have two of moderate size? It will just do some damage to both and that's all. Rag would actually (probably) kill at least one. Rag can win you gave through taunts and full boards, without a need to sticking anything on board.

Don't you remember all these crazy lethals and removals Rag accumulated thorough years? Priestess will most likely never have her own compilations. That's pretty much because she's unreliable. You say Rag was random? Priestess is even less predictable. It shines only in three scenarios:

1) vs. a board of very small (low health) minions 

2) on an empty board

3) vs. just one moderately sized minion (3-4 health and nothing guaranteed).

Rag was crippled only by boards full of small minions. Drop it in any other scenario and it's either better or similarly good as Priestess. 

The hilarious thing is today I saw even more DHs than when it was first released. 6 in a row, at which point I stopped playing the game (no, I wasn't getting destroyed, went 3-3). The problem I have with it is that its not like people are experimenting with post nerf DH. No, these were the same old stupid shit, with Battlefiends (which will surely be cut) and no changes to the build at all.

I know - people want to use last moments of it, grind the rank, grind the portrait, blah, blah.  But it's a fucking game! Not a job your life depends on for fuck sake. You don't have to use all measures available to win! Seriously for me it feels like cheating. There's stuff even its creators deemed too strong. Yet you abuse it just because it is still allowed, even though it soon won't be. It's an exploit. And on top of that you are being a dick to people who simply want to enjoy the game. There's no real reason to run old builds of DH now. You are not trying new stuff, so you don't know how the deck will perform just in a few days. There's no learning experience, no knowledge to be gained. In a few days, when meta shifts, you'll just again netdeck the best deck out there like a complete moron without their own brain.

Seriously, I'd like to live a life so careless, so my miserable priorities in life are so fucked up, to a point, where my only goal and achievement in life is some ranks in an online game. 

But instead I have other things to do, so when I enter the game in the meantime between my job and meeting my girlfriend, I face 6 virgins having nothing even remotely more productive to do with their lifes than just being one rank higher in an online game. 

Quote from IceD34ler >>

What I find interesting and that's something a lot of people already mentioned: every new expansion usually has some broken decks because of Basic cards.

Either its abusing the Charge mechanic (Pirate Warrior, Quest Rogue, Face Hunter) with Stonetusk Boar, Unleash the Hounds or Leeroy Jenkins, or insane ramp (Nourish, Innervate) or other basic cards, now Sacrificial Pact. The Basic set causes a lot of trouble mostly.

 

 Well, they were designed years ago. It's easier to break them, because they were written without thinking of future mechanics. It's easier to control things, when you design them together. Therefore older cards will always be easy to break.

And let's be real - Charge andramp were broken mechanics. It only lacked tools. Charge was broken even in times of Miracle Rogue, which most of us don't even remember (including me - joining the game in Naxx format). Ramp... Ramp was in the game since early days to and it was always somewhere there. It was a solid pick for years and there are very few (none) arechetypes in Hearthstone, which are constantly somewhere around the top for so long.

Reminds me how I encouraged a new player here a few months ago to upgrade a basic Warrior with Galakrond...

 Yeah, I missed C'Thun, when I mentioned that earlier it worked similarly with Mechs and Dragons - you could just stuff your deck with bunch of them and it somehow worked (probably because when C'Thun entered the game I already had much gold and dust and many playable decks, so I didn't experience this aspect on myself - ahh, good times, now I have just 2 decks, one of them being budget and only some dust for crafting maybe one more deck). 

The problem I have with this comparison is power ceiling. I don't think that C'Thun has ever been as powerful as a standalone package, as Galakrond. It was really hard to buff it a reliable size without Brann. We all probably played against shit tons of these budget C'Thun decks back then. They were playable on lower ranks, but only against similarly powerful decks. Nothing more. To achieve any significant win ratio you had to have a proper C'Thun deck and it worked only with Warrior and Druid to some extent. Slamming bunch of C'Thun focused cards onto a basic deck was better only than a completely basic deck. 

Another thing is dropping C'Thun never felt like an almost certain win. C'Thun had to kill the opponent for it to be effective or you had to be ahead already, so that C'Thun was a nail in a coffin. If you were behind and dropped C'Thun, it would most likely clear the board, deal some face damage and... that's it. You are left with, let's say 18/18 on an empty board and you end the turn. C'Thun dies to removal. It always did. 

I know we are talking a different meta. But I am not comparing the cards in a vacuum. I am looking at how their performed in their respective environments. I don't think C'Thun had snowballing potential of Galakrond. Basic Galakrond deck now feels much more powerful than basic C'Thun deck then. Drawing C'Thun and dropping it early has never been a guaranteed win vs a deck of similar power level, while Galakrond pretty much is.

I am all about giving new and budget players tools. Heck, now I am basically one of them. I missed most of the Year of the Mammoth, entire Year of the Raven, Year of the Dragon and joined just now - when people have decks built out of 6 sets, which I have none of. I had some dust saved so I crafted myself a Mage and I still can craft one more deck. I'd love to use some cheap/free stuff. I even happily welcomed DH in the game - even though it's broken, with just some dust investment it gave me a top tier deck. So once I craft my third deck I will have 3 competitive ones, even though technically I am almost a newbie (my saving grace is that I have almost entire classic set). So free stuff - hell yeah.

But I wanted to talk about Galakrond itself - apart from whether it is cheap to buy (some gold) or not. The card itself - doesn't matter it is cheap - feels very busted to me. As I said, people play it in top decks, even unsupported, just as a late-game threat. I am not familiar with Wild at all, but I heard it's played there too (so it has to be very powerful to keep up). It is a power level most neutral Legendaries don't achieve.  It's on par with Sylvanas, Rag, Loatheb in the old days.  And it's no surprise two of them were Hall of Fame'd and the third one wasn't probably only because it rotated out.