Hearthpwn

Getting to legend requires a lot of effort no matter what people say. If you look at it statistically it takes about 150 games from rank 5 to legend even with a 60% win-rate. From my experience everyone saying "deck X makes it an easy task" or "I could get to legend if I had no life" have no clue what they are talking about.

When you reach the high ranks (3 through legend) your opponents are almost certainly net-decking and they make very few - if any - mistakes. This means you have to play flawlessly also; and believe me: If there was one OP deck to rule them all then all people would play that deck. As it is I meet tons of different variations of decks on those ranks so the single OP deck is a myth. All decks have counters and sometimes you just meet a lot of counter decks and draw horribly. If we go back to the 60% win-rate deck you will still encounter 5-6 or even 7 game lose streaks on your way to legend (statistically speaking - thankfully it is not guaranteed). Now try going from early rank 2 to late rank 4 over 10 games and keep your concentration. Now that is a task that takes focus - and it is a task you must endure to reach legend rank.

People can use whichever cardback they desire, but the whole "getting to legend is actually easy" thing I find is a load of BS. Put your cards where your mouth is :-)

Hmm... I disagree with most of the ratings. I am not saying that the ratings are that poor, but people seem to forget that specific cards that seem really bad can actually work really well in specific decks :-) Take the corrupted Pagle: Is it a bad card? In some ways yes, but what if you are playing a mill deck? Or what if the mechanic does not trigger, and you win board control? Etc.

Looking at tier lists etc. can be a good idea, but honestly it really depends on your play-style and how much time you wish to invest in the game.

If your goal - for example - is to reach legend rank you have to find a deck which you find it SO much fun to play! Going from rank 5 to legend with a 60% win rate statistically means having to play about 150 games. This is only possible to do for a person who finds the deck generally fun to play. Looking at tier lists says nothing about the entertainment value of each deck, and this depends 100% on what type of player you are.

Another point is about difficulty and speed. Some decks in that list - especially control warrior - take A LOT of skill and practice to play properly. There are SO many people who play control warrior very badly (even at rank 4/5) - and then they complain about deck quality etc. Once you have found your favorite deck be prepared to invest the 200-300 games it takes for the average player to master that deck. I kid you not! You need to learn how to play against each match-up, how to avoid certain "traps" (not talking about actual traps in the game), which deck-lists are popular and which mistakes other players typically make.

Looking at speed: Which is faster: Reaching legend with a 65% win-rate control warrior deck or a 60% aggro-shaman deck? Numbers would have you pick the 65% win-rate deck, but when you consider the average playtime for those to decks in actuality the aggro deck climbs faster due to the lower game times. If you are heading for top 100 legend however - looking at win % does become relevant.

In general: Do not forget that Hearthstone is about having fun, so you should pick a fun deck and master it if climbing the ranks is your goal. Looking at a tier list says nothing about the type of deck which will accommodate you as a player - and therefore I will NEVER recommend that in itself.

All in all: look at the different decks and try them out. Even if you are missing a few cards playing 5-10 matches in casual can give you an idea about your level of enthusiasm with each deck. Once you find your favorite go ahead and craft the cards you are missing - and then begin the grind.

*A final note: Even 65+% win-rate decks experience losing-streaks. Losing 5-6 games in a row does happen even with such decks. Keeping a cool mind in such situations is also crucial if you wish to succeed in the end.

This was a long answer to a short question. I wish you best of luck with whichever deck you choose. Just remember to have fun!

Sweet card for arena! Decent for control hunter - if that becomes a bigger thing in the new meta :-)

Great card! I really like it. The power level is very adequate - it will probably see both arena and constructed play, but at the same time it is not OP at all. It probably works best in decks where you need the 1 damage to trigger your own minions - otherwise I would probably prefer the 3/4 taunt.

Wow! Those are really interesting. Both may see some use - unlike most of the other cards presented so far :-)

Hmm... many of the new legendaries seem really "meh" :(

If you are certain that you want to play this deck you should definitely craft it as there are no real replacements for the Doomhammers. They are your best friends in longer match-ups. Like I wrote earlier to another person one Doomhammer is basically 16 damage (and 24 if you have the druid hero power) so you can sometimes win against control priests/warriors by simply maintaining a constant damage output throughout the game. Also they double the damage-output when you use Rockbiter Weapon on your character (Allowing crazy burst damage and sometimes very salty opponents).

That was a long answer to a short question. Sorry! Best of luck with the climb :-)

Hi there,

Absolutely not I'm afraid. Doomhammer is the number one damage card in the deck (1 Doomhammer deals 16 damage in itself - and 24 if you have the druid hero power. It also doubles the damage output of using Rockbiter Weapon). The Doomhammers are crucial against control warriors / control priests where you can easily go to the late-game and sometimes still win with this deck simply because you deal a steady 4 damage each turn at minimum. Leeroy is a pure burst card - and this deck does not need any more burst.

Seems like an original and interesting deck. I will play it for a bit at high ranks. If nothing else it seems fun! :-)

Did it the first time with Control Warrior and it took me so long and the grind was so nerve wracking that it'll always feels good to see it in my card back collection.

I'm proud of my legend card back and I think this thread is offencing every players that worked hard to get there. No matter the deck you play, hitting the legend rank is a big time investment and you need to be fully dedicated to reach it.

So yes, I think it worth legend.

Unless you got to legend by botting (in which case Blizzard hopefully found out and you got your ass banned), legend is definitely a worthwhile achievement no matter what deck you used. Unless your win rate is really high (which, even with a top tier deck can be difficult at the higher ranks), you had to have grinded out a lot of games. Staying motivated to actually reach the goal of legend is an achievement itself. Because let's say you used Secret Paladin. Well, that means you also had to play against your fair share of Secret Paladins and probably Combo Druids too. That doesn't mean anything? Most people would probably quit after playing the 50th Combo Druid or 64th Secret Paladin that season. If you got to legend, I don't care what deck you used, it's worthwhile achievement. It doesn't automatically mean that they are a great player, but it is a worthwhile achievement nonetheless. They hit their goal while most other people would quit.

But why someone would actually question the worth of their own achievement after the fact, I don't really understand. Who cares what someone thinks and how you got something? You got it yourself, and if it means something to you, I would leave it at that. And trying to judge how someone else got their legend rank? I dunno, it just seems pointless to me. Everyone makes mistakes and misplays. And everyone will always get the short end of the stick on draws in some games. If they want to show off their legend card back, good for them. They earned it. And if some of you guys feel pressured or shamed to use it (because you feel you need to be "perfect" and never misplay), get over it. If you lose a game, you lost, no matter what card back you showed. Do you really care what your opponent (who you will probably never meet face to face in your life) thinks? I mean seriously, if you got to legend, just be glad you did something that most people who play this game will never do, and that will always be worth something.

For me its the penultimate goal in this game.  In ranked there's really just 1) Gold Heroes 2) Legend.  No one cares about win rates or rankings.  Yes its a time sink, and yes there are easy decks to get there but no deck is guaranteed.   Even Shaman has counters.  

I don't think Secretdin and other decks have diluted the value of Legend.  The card back puts a target on your back and everything is scrutinized.

It's also a huge time investment.   I'll only go for legend if I hit rank 5 with 10 days left.   I've gotten close twice and grinding in last few hours is the most depressing thing ever.  The whole 'just use x deck for easy wins' isn't true either because ranks 5-1 is full of counters for T1 decks.  

The funny thing is, I could probably get it with Freeze Mage; but since I have my Gold Mage, I feel like I'm wasting games.

I'm OK with bad/mediocre/extremely niche cards a la Majordomo Executus because stuff like that is fun/exciting/interesting/etc. But this? This, along with the other corrupted cards we've seen so far are amazingly bland. Many who compete in the Weekly Design Competition would be able to come up with something more interesting! And that sucks, because the persons creating these boring cards are actually paid. On paper corrupted cards sounds interesting, but they have been poorly made. A fix to this card that would make it somewhat interesting would be 3 mana 5/5 "Battlecry: Add 2 Bananas to your deck". You would get a good body for the cost but potentially screw up future draws. Just a quick idea I had, but if I were given this art and namn and some time I could probably make it alot more interesting. Another sad part is that new art is being made for stuff like this, it's such a waste...

I'm so disappointed in Blizzard's HS team, some change in the staff would probably do the game well...

The sheer number of garbage Legendary cards in this coming expansion is staggering.

People are going to have a very very bad reaction after they turn over their orange cards.

Quote from LiquidNivu >>

This card is superb, if you're interested here's why:

Obviously the closest card to compare it to is Antique Healbot as they both cost 5 mana and heal your face on Battlecry.

Lets first compare the bodies: While the stats difference of 1/1 on a 5 mana card is only worth around 0,9 mana, a 4/4 body is substantially stronger than a 3/3 body. Most commonly played 2 mana cards are already enough to kill a 3/3 (Knife Juggler, Acidic Swamp Ooze, Frostbolt, Wrath, Shadow Word: Pain, Fiery War Axe etc...). But how often have you seen a 0-2 mana card singlehandedly kill a 4/4? Only cards with drawbacks like Soulfire, Millhouse, Succubus, Naturalize etc come to mind (Flamecannon is only in wild, I'm not talking about wild). Furthermore even most 3 mana cards have difficulties to kill a 4/4, because the 4+ attack minions on 3 mana just aren't played with the exception of Big Game Hunter which is a tech card you are unlikely to have on board when the Cult Apothecary is played.

Conclusion: To remove Antique Healbot it usually costs 2 mana, to remove Cult Apothecary it will usually cost 4 mana which is a big difference.

Now for the healing: Obviously Cult Apothecary can heal from 0-14, healing 8 when the opponents has 4 minions. But lets dig a little deeper: When do we need as much heal as possible? Only when the opponent is pressuring our face, otherwise (with a healthy face) we prefer board presence (which the 4/4 clearly does A LOT better as shown before. And usually aggressive decks play a ton of small minions, because this is the best way to keep the draws consistent (playing an aggro deck on curve will often result in your not having a 1, 2, 3 or 4 drop ready, resulting in a loss of the upper hand which is crucial for aggro decks to succeed). So I'm very confident, that in most scenarios where we would have played healbot, we will get AT LEAST 6 heal from the Cult Apothecary (while dropping a stronger body).

Lets also take a look on manaefficiency regarding healing: It makes sense to only compare it to other healing minions (and not spells). Earthen Ring Farseer is about 1 stat below curve, meaning 1/7th of stats per mana is missing - thats a total of 3/7th. For those 3/7th mana he heals for 3, thats 7 heal/mana. Guardian of Kings is 2/2 short in stats which is about 1,6 mana and heals for 6, thats 3,75 heal/mana. Finally Antique Healbot is 2/3 short in stats which is about 2,3 mana and heals for 8, thats 3,48 heal/mana. So we see Farseer is way above those other heal/mana values, but it only heals for 3 which is not that gamechanging. The other 2 values are very close to each other. So lets just take the Healbot's value, because we already said Healbot comes closest in 1vs1 comparison. Cult Apothecary is 1/2 short of values which is about 1,36 mana. Take 1,36*3,48 = 4,73. So 4,73 heal has to be done from Apothecary to be worth it manawise. That's 2,36 enemy minions worth of heal.

Conclusion: Taking body and healing power together, Cult Apothecary brings already more value than Antique Healbot if your opponent has 3 minions.

Bonus fact: You're likely to play the Apothecary in control-oriented decks. And in control vs control matchups you might not even need any heal from Apothecary. In these matchups board presence and overall deck value (the value of all 30 cards together) is more important. So in this case you can just slam down the Apothecary if you dont have a better drop left and still profit, while you would probably just keep the Healbot in hand and end the turn generating no board, because you know Healbot will usually only trade for a 2 mana card, which isnt justifyable. And there will probably be A LOT of control vs control matchups when Old God's and Standard hit!

Have a nice day lads! :)

Finally, a counter to Mindgames, Thoughtsteal, and Mind Vision!
Just what this expansion needed!

Oh hey a Legend deck I have all the cards for!  I can't wait to see how this fairs on the ladder.