Hearthpwn

Quote from blackfyre14 >>

Quote from cluelesspug >>

I've never understood why Zoo is considered aggro. Isn't it just aggressive midrange? You make trades frequently, play around AOE, and fight for the board. Sure your curve ends at 5 mana, but a lot of other midrange decks stop at 6 mana (with the exception of Ragnaros).

 More so on how proactively a deck plays.  Pure face decks may not trade, but most aggro decks will make sensible trades.  Where many midrange decks are fine with clearing with a weapon or hero powering if they don't curve out perfectly, Zoo always has the 1 drops handy, and plays one of the most proactive games of any deck.   It bordered on midrange back in the days when it had Voidcallers, Boom, and often Mal'Ganis.

I agree with most here, Face Hunter level of opression was unparalleled. The 2nd place for me is between Secret Paladin and the actual Pirate Warrior, although Secret Paladin was not really "aggro" but more of an extremely good curvestone deck that had the best cards in the game for each mana slot.

3471 Ranked / 3724 Arena. I'm infinite in Arena (70% win rate) while I don't enjoy very much ranked, but been Legend 3 times only because I found decks I really enjoy playing on those seasons. I'm actually really suprised how much difference is between ranked and Arena wins in all the previous posts. Arena to me is the most interesting HS mode by far.

https://gyazo.com/50a72d1f50710eb3032ab915f54e723c

After trying Dragon Priest, which is supposed to stop Pirate Warrior, and failing 2 times in a row, I decided to try this famous Pirate Warrior deck myself to see if all people are saying was justified (I've played many times against it but didn't have the user's perspective). The result was going from rank 9 to 7 in exactly 39 minutes (9 matches, went 8-1, only loosing to a Rogue that made a huge Van Cleef on turn 3). The average turns of my matches was 6-7. I won even the unfavourable matchups like Renolock and Aggro Shaman.

It basically requires zero level of skill (maybe not zero but really close to it). It's amazing how much and constant pressure this deck can create. Pretty much every card you draw can do damage inmediatly (weapons, charge minions or spells), so being short of cards isn't so much of a problem, as in a topdeck situation there are very few dead draws. Bad opening hands are super rare due to all the cheap pirates it runs. Most of the times the correct play is going face, except when you have a Frothing Berseker on the board which can get really huge and win the game by itself.

So, yes. I can understand the hate towards this deck, because it's supper aggresive, the level of aggression I didn't see since the Face Hunter era (before Standard was a thing, with Haunted Creeper, Mad Scientist, etc.). Much more than what Aggro Shaman was before the nerfs. And I also understand why so much people use it. It's a deck that is super effective, really easy to play and that has really fast matches, which is good to climb. It really surprised me how auto-pilote this deck is, having played before more than 50 games with Pirate Miracle Rogue, which has so many options per turn. I will stop playing it because I don't really enjoy it, just wanted to see it for myself for a bit. 

And I know it's been discussed before and it's not topic of this post (although it's very related), but it's also has to do with a core HS problem, which is that aggro decks tend to have almost guaranteed good opening hands (cheap and super efficient cards), while the rest of the decks don't, so if they don't draw their early answers they are dead against aggro. And this is something that has been around since the Naxx era.

Quote from sampe >>

Good analysis of the matchups but I gotta say sinister strike doesn't fit to this deck at all. And never replace Edwin. He might be strongest card in the whole game currently. If he isn't, for sure top 5 card of whole game. Also http://imgur.com/a/7UhNV. I got almost 100 games tracked. So the coin thing is probly overexaggerated.

I know Rogue's winrate gets affected the most with coin but the strong 1 drops helped that problem some. Usually you want to go first against other agressive pirate decks so you get ur buccaneer to board first.

Ok, I've played a bit more than 50 games with this list with the only change of -1 Sap and +1 Sinister Strike. These are my stats so far: https://gyazo.com/1b6fffccb473a6e0e74983c6a3c86b6f

And the overall win rate: https://gyazo.com/e52ab0a8c0a46a595b41e3bbe4738c9f

So, these are my thoughts: I would place this deck as a tier2 deck. What's the good thing? That you won't be playing against hard counter decks. You have chances against all of them. Either Favourable, even or slightly unfavourable, at least in the actual meta. How did I find the deck against the top decks right now?

1) Renolock: highly favourable. I'm 5-1 against them.

2) Aggro Shaman: even. It really depends on who has the better opening.

3) Midrange Shaman: even or slightly favourable. Your miracle turn tneds to be very important in this match.

4) Jade Druid: favourable. You can really take advantage of their slow start and start going face at the midgame to seal it. The problem is that when you don't have a good opening hand, you're probably doomed.

5) Dragon Priest: even. Rogue has always been good against Priest in general, but now they have so strong curve minions that can be a difficult match when they draw well. 

6) Pirate Warrior: slightly unfavourable. Let's put it this way: the opening here is the most important factor, and they run much more pirates than you, so their good opening is almost guaranteed. Then, if you can find your pirates in the mulligan, you stand a chance. If not, you don't.

General thoughts: first of all, it's amazing how different my win rate is with the coin (78%) and without it (45%). I know it's rogue that has all the combo cards, but still, it's a pretty huge difference. Secondly, it's also really noticeable how different is my win rate when I get Swashburglar or Small-Time Buccaneer on turn 1 and when I don't. Against Jade Druid, for instance, I'm 5-4. All 5 wins, I got a Pirate on turn 1. All 4 losses, I didn't. And this concerns me a bit. At this point, I think that I'm going to swap the 2 Counterfeit Coin for 2 Southsea Deckhand to make the opening more reliable, seeing how important it is in all my matches. The coins are nice, specially with Auctioneer, but those are the only cards I think I can remove from the deck without hurting it too much. I'm also thinking of addind a 2nd Sap instead of Edwin, as without the coins it's more difficult to make it big.

Quote from scout1515 >>

Against aggro it really depends on who draws better. Basically if you draw your taunts you'll win, if not you'll get owned.  Against renolock most of the wins I get are a result of stealing one of their cards and using it to get lethal. If I can get like 6 damage on top of the board I can usually get a lethal in without them renoing or doing something to clear the board.

That's just my personal experience.

Against warrior I try to mulligan for my taunts. I always keep twilight guardian since that stops a pirate warrior in their tracks. I will keep taunts, northshire cleric (it acts like a soft taunt. I've NEVER not had someone remove it right away, and that buys some time), whelp, shadow word: pain, and if I have a good starting hand I'll keep sw: death too (ohh the rage quits when they trade into your board and you death their 10/4 frothing berserker)

Against shaman I'll keep a shadow word: death if it's in my starting hand, since that 4 mana 7/7 comes out early all too often and if you remove it with a sw: death a lot of times they just concede right there

Against warlock I won't keep sw: pain/death since they usually don't play much early on.

How well does this deck perform against Pirate Warrior, Renolock, Jade Druid and Midrange and Aggro Shaman? Those 5 and Dragon Priest are the 6 decks I see the most in my meta by far, specially the different types of Shaman (mainly Midrange, Aggro Pirate and Aggro without Pirates). Can anyone post actual stats of this deck against those?

Quote from Darknesspyre >>

I think to be fair this community has said that about any deck that has proved to be successful or popular. I understand that it is not fun to get your face bashed in by pirates, however Secret paladin was called cancer, face hunter was called cancer, freeze mage was called cancer, midrange shaman was called cancer, I have even seen reno decks being called cancer. The thing about card games that magic the gathering learnt the hard way is that no matter what the metagame is, there is always going to be at least one dominant deck, so in that sense people in this community will always call a deck cancer no matter what the metagame is. It is like no matter what cards blizzard make, any deck that that is strong in the metagame is going to be called cancer no matter whether the deck is aggro, midrange or control. Blizzard could release an expansion focused on a control metagame and print no minions below three mana and people will still find a deck to call cancer. The whole "This deck is ruining hearthstone" has been said in pretty much every single expansion.

Quote from Deftmove >>

Quote from JacquesDupont >>

My god, I'm sick of these threads. Meta hasn't stabilized yet, if pirates are dominating then in a few weeks you'll see a lot of counter decks to those. In fact, one of the best decks of the moment, Dragon Priest, owns all pirate decks, except maybe Rogue, plus is good against a lot of other decks and it's super easy to play.

Forsen just got DESTROYED playing all pirate decks (Warrior, Shaman and Rogue) against Superjj's Dragon Priest deck. So, instead of whining, why don't you try a deck that's good against aggro for a change.

 Because I am and I'm still losing more than I'm winning vs Wild Pirates with Wild Renolock, I just had a game with Turn 2 Darkbomb, Turn 3 Shadowbolt, Turn 4 Sen'jin Master, Turn 5 Secondrate Bruiser, Turn 6 Reno Jackson and still lost to Arcanite Reaper with Upgrade as I struggled to take the board with Deathlord and Twilight Drake and counter attack. You can literally play the best removal, taunts and heals in the game and still lose the game because the matchup is a coin flip at best and you're the more mulligan and draw reliant deck so variance is not on your side.

Top 1 and 2 Legend right now are Pirate Warrior IN WILD, the home of Zombie Chow, Dark Bomb, Deathlord, Sludge Belcher and Antique Healbot, the problem is that you just can't compete with the mana and tempo efficiency of Weapons and Upgrade! consistently. And if Wild Renolock can't compete with Wild Pirates, which only gains Ship's Cannon, with better than a Coinflip if you draw all of your tech cards then it is either time for massive nerfs on Pirate Warrior itself (which would be Ship's Cannon, Upgrade! and Frothing Berserker) or on Jade Druid (Jade Idol) in order to let Control Warrior back into the meta.

Yeah, the Priest decks are alright vs Pirate Warrior, unfortunately they have some of the same problems as Control Warrior vs Jade Druid and lose to combo almost automatically. It isn't a matter of waiting on the meta, the meta is here, and short of other Pirate Hybrid decks appearing Pirate Warrior is just going to ROFL stomp the game in both formats because it's the most mana efficient aggro deck the game has seen since Aggro Shaman, which brought about the Rockbiter Weapon and Abusive Sergeant nerfs. The new cards aren't in line with the nerf policy of slowing the game down, so you either nerf Pirates as well or you unnerf Arcane Golemn, Leper Gnome, Abusive Sergeant and Rockbiter Weapon.

Blizzard just doesn't seem to know what it's doing with the game, you nerf aggro, fail to learn your lesson, print even better aggro cards while rotating out/nerfing control tools and printing a Jade bullet for the entire archetype?

My god, I'm sick of these threads. Meta hasn't stabilized yet, if pirates are dominating then in a few weeks you'll see a lot of counter decks to those. In fact, one of the best decks of the moment, Dragon Priest, owns all pirate decks, except maybe Rogue, plus is good against a lot of other decks and it's super easy to play.

Forsen just got DESTROYED playing all pirate decks (Warrior, Shaman and Rogue) against Superjj's Dragon Priest deck. So, instead of whining, why don't you try a deck that's good against aggro for a change.

Quote from MattMurdock77 >>

Quote from JacquesDupont >>

I've played about 20 games with Pirate-Miracle Rogue (or Piracle) and I have a positive record against every class. Never would have imagined Rogue could be that strong at the moment. Thet thing is that it requires much more skill and experience than most of the decks due to having multiple options each turn, so I guess it's because of that that I don't see many rogues around while I do see so many Shamans, Warriors and Druids.

Can you post the deck? 

The easier class to understand what tempo is is Rogue. There are plenty of tempo oriented cards. Think for example of Preparation. You are sacrificing card disadvantage with it, but you're gaining 3 mana of tempo. So, if your opponent has a 5/5 on board on turn 5, and you kill it with Preparation+ Shadow Strike and you drop a 5/5 of yours, you have card disadvantage because you killed the 5/5 with 2 cards, but you gained amazing tempo, because with only 5 mana you killed one 5/5 and dropped your 5/5, recovering the lead.

The same applies to Sap. Using this card also means putting yourself in a card disadvantage situation because you are just delaying a threat, not killing it. But let's say that your opponent played on an empty board Cairne Bloodhoof on turn 6. You can Sap it and still have 4 mana to drop your Tomb Pillager. Cairne may still come back the next turn, but then you have your 5/4 on the board plus 7 mana to deal with it or play more stuff on the board, when the turn before you only had 6 mana and zero minions on the board to deal with it. 

But what teaches more about tempo is the Rogue's hero power. It's like the definition of tempo. With 2 mana you get to ping twice on 2 different turns, and you can even decide to hero power and not attack that turn, so that you can gain that tempo later. Compare it with the rest of the hero powers that ping. Rogue uses its own life as a resource to gain tempo. Mage is the opposite, it is superior in keeping her hp, but not in tempo (you get only 1 ping every 2 mana). Druid is the worse, because it has the tempo limitations Mage has (only one ping every 2 mana) but also has to sacrifice some hp to remove something (although it gains armor to moderate that damage he takes). 

Quote from Sherman1986 >>

Quote from JacquesDupont >>

I've played about 20 games with Pirate-Miracle Rogue (or Piracle) and I have a positive record against every class. Never would have imagined Rogue could be that strong at the moment. Thet thing is that it requires much more skill and experience than most of the decks due to having multiple options each turn, so I guess it's because of that that I don't see many rogues around while I do see so many Shamans, Warriors and Druids.

Even if that ends up being true, 20 games mean little. You need to play much more matches to really know how good a deck is.

I've played about 20 games with Pirate-Miracle Rogue (or Piracle) and I have a positive record against every class. Never would have imagined Rogue could be that strong at the moment. Thet thing is that it requires much more skill and experience than most of the decks due to having multiple options each turn, so I guess it's because of that that I don't see many rogues around while I do see so many Shamans, Warriors and Druids.