Hearthpwn

I don't think this is what you were looking for, but the biggest surprises I get from decks are when I get absolutely bamboozled by a play or card. As I tend to play in janky tiers it's often a player that has included a card that really doesn't fit with the rest of their deck, and may lead me to make a suboptimal response due to what I expect their deck to be like (ie. a turn 1 Leper Gnome from the opponent, implying that they're going to be going hyper aggro, so when playing something like a Primordial Rune I pick an anti-aggro card - only for them to turn out to be a control deck otherwise).

I can't think of any recent examples of that (being bamboozled by a misconstructed deck), but I do recall being bamboozled by an archetype I hadn't seen before (well, not in this form anyway). Paladin opponent played a turn 1 Uldum quest (play reborn minions to get a new hero power) then proceeded to play no reborn minions. I assumed they just hadn't included enough or something - then it turned out to be Death Knight Uther combo, using the quest purely to turn on the battlecry minions that give you a coin if you have a quest up (the coin giving more mana + refreshing the hero power via Auctioneer Beardo). I'd seen the combo before - I love doing it myself - but hadn't seen it done in this way, via a useless quest. :-P

Also, darn there now actually being a Bamboozle card! I've been referring to this type of 'trickery' as a bamboozle for years, and I'm not about to stop now. :-P

I'm sure it's probably been mentioned, but it seems like the best line is to Bloodsworn Mercenary to take care of the taunt, hit face with the weapon, and see what lackey you get. 2 damage lackey is guaranteed lethal, spell lackey is maybe lethal (Inner Rage), but every other lackey is likely to be a dud - you'd have to get lucky off of transform lackey to hit a charge minion or similar. So if you whiff on both, it's potentially better to Battle Rage and see what the deck gives you (you'd need double Battle Rage I believe, as in just about every circumstance double Rampage for 6 extra damage would be required for lethal).

So, basically, Bloodsworn Merc to get rid of the taunt, hit face with weapon, then either lackey for maybe/certain lethal, or Battle Rage for maybe lethal. It's best to hit face before using the Rampages on the Bloodsworn as even though the copied minion is smaller, you're already basically all-in here, and at least saving that 4 mana upfront could give you a spell lackey into Brawl as an out.

Honestly, golden DH portrait is about as meaningless as the legend cardback from people who played pirate warrior. Hell, it's even less meaningful - at least those playing pirate warrior still had to contend with the amount of time it takes to climb to legend.

Just played a copy-paste tempo DH deck - completely standard legal - in the wild jank leagues. Golden portrait, so has gotten 500 wins with it - but Jesus Christ were they bad. I have to imagine that's part of what contributed to them appearing in wild - they're so bad they can't tell the difference between standard (where the deck was tier 1 last time I checked), and wild (where I think the deck was tier 3 at best when I last checked).

Turn 3 I play Wild Pyro + Last Kaleidosaur to clear their board of x/1s. On their turn 3, they play Sightless Watcher... then Urzul Horror, despite me having a 3/1 on board, and now having revealed I'm playing a deck with buffs (so could easily have 2 buff spells to keep my Pyro alive and clear again). I don't, but I still get a nice trade for my 3/1.

Turn 4, they trade that Horror into my 1/1 recruit, just so they can play another 2/1 instead of hero powering. I mean, dafug.

Turn 7 they play Priestess of Fury (because ofc), but then play Twin Slice and don't attack. I can only imagine they failed to see the 4/6 taunt I had out, but yet another silly play. Sidenote: Priestess of Fury is absolutely obnoxious. Not too many minions you have to do a fairly bad trade into because 6 missiles at EoT is too good to allow to continue.

Turn 8, I have two recruits out, plus an Acolyte of Pain and Imprisoned Vilefiend. They play Altruis. Second Slice is the right most card in their hand - between that and hero power, they can clear all but the Vilefiend, only letting me draw 2 cards off of Acolyte (which is a win for them in the face of Altruis), and while Vilefiend would live it now can't eat Altruis in a trade. Nope, he plays Altruis, hero powers down a recruit and passes.

That was essentially it. It's just frustrating to see someone play so badly, yet have a golden hero so quickly (I've seen plenty of bad players with golden heroes, but at least the game has been out for long enough that even a bad, casual player could get 500 wins with their favourite class). Obviously no skill is required to get it.

Quote from carrot >>

Zephyr lost me an easy win with demon hunter. ten mana with kayn sunfury in hand, one metamorphosis shot left, twin slice, flame reaper equipped with potential to do 15 damage and i needed 3 more damage to win. seeing as i had zephyr in hand and 4 spare mana i play him to get a frostbolt or spell to do 3 damage, pretty simple right? give's me fucking brawl and two taunt minions. Fuck you zephyr, you're not very great.

I hate to say it - because this is a place to vent - but here, you should be salty with yourself. If you had taken your opponent to 3 health before playing Zeph, he would've given you lethal. If you're inexperienced with Zeph that's fine, but anyone that uses him learns early on that you have to try and minimise the chance he doesn't see what you do (in this case, lethal). That's why if, say, you're looking for a specific board clear like Shadowflame, if you can help it, you spend mana down to 6 before playing Zeph - so he's significantly more likely to offer you a 4 cost option.

25 games isn't nearly a big enough sample to conclude that the true average winrate of this deck would be 96% - it has just been 96% against what you've faced. What rank? How soft was the meta?

On HSReplay, the best res priest deck has a 57.2% winrate - that's far more indicative of what this sort of deck could achieve (and even that may not be accurate - I don't know exactly how they get their stats, but some of those wins could come from a soft meta too).

My point is, if you advertise your deck as having *insert insane win-rate here*, expect someone to come in and talk about it how it could be misleading. :-P

I'm a collector - I personally never dust anything given that I'll only get a ~1/4 refund and there might be some really unlikely scenario where I try to use a stupid card at some point.

That said, full refund? Totally got the refund on Bloodbloom and Open the Waygate. Bloodbloom is still technically possible in a Mechathun deck, but needs Drakkari Enchanter to get a double-reduction on it + Mechathun which is a much bigger ask, and the only deck I ever ran Waygate in only ran a couple extra chances at non-starting spells, so going up to 8 makes it far worse for that deck. With a full refund, I can always get them back later. :-)

Initially was unhappy with the Sac Pact change, but I think it actually makes sense now. Not because the warlocks having the card for now is bad - I think it's fine for DH's to have a bad matchup against a class that techs against it - but for two reasons:

1. Highlander decks. Until Zeph rotates everyone can get Sac Pact, and given that there are plenty of highlander decks in the competitive tiers this can be problematic (though DH winrates don't reflect this /shrug).
2. Design space moving forward. It's not just about having DH take a hit to their huge winrate now - but that class relying on classic demons and future demons being printed in the future, those cards wouldn't live up to their potential if they could just be removed for 2-3 mana (which is what I thought they change should be initially).

So a fine nerf to Sac Pact, though they really need to tone down DH a bit more than these pathetic nerfs to them do (once again, all 3 cards have been nerfed so minorly that they'll all still see play).

Quote from Wonderbuster >>

 

Jaraxxus more than likely is going to be turned into a Death Knight for Warlock, because the reason why he doesn't see play now is because you have to bet on them not having Repentence, Sacrificial Pact or Snipe (a card that also affects them, probably Explosive Runes too) because Jaraxxus is a minion first.

 Just to clarify, a couple fringe and usually unplayed secrets is not why Jaraxxus isn't played. Of course, a 6/6 per turn is amazing. However, to get that you need to:

* Set your maximum health to 15, which is suicidal against many decks (and given that control warlock decks run a lot of healing due to their self-damage, it'd turn off many of those cards too)
* Take up practically your whole turn with no board to show for it
* Give you a 3/8 weapon that, for the most part, can only go face due to how low your maximum health is.

Effectively, you're giving your opponent a free Alexstrasza effect, in a competitive environment these days where 10+ damage from hand isn't that unusual.

If Jaraxxus even had somewhere between 20-25 health, he might have a chance, and at 30 health it'd be a real possibility (though, again, doing basically nothing on being played is a huge drawback), but 15 health and doing nothing for 9 mana is a big handicap.

Thoughts:

* I think a slight Sac Pact change is fine. It's a tech card, that just happens to be quite good because demon hunter is quite good, and even though it's not useless otherwise (in a Galakrond deck, at least), it doesn't have enough other use to make it not-a-tech-card. I think a tax of 2-3 mana if you target a demon you don't control is fair.

* Bad Luck Albatross and Frenzed Felwing would be fine changes. Felwing should just take some tweaking with numbers (cost more, limit reduction, something like that), whereas Albatross is just way too much better than Weasel Tunneler. If it's primarily meant to be an anti-highlander card, they should make it similar to bombs and Ambush, which also worked in that manner (it shuffles 2+ cards into your deck, but you draw another when you draw that one - so it still turns off highlander, but can't be used troll opponents).

* Kael'thas - I get their frustration. It really is an interesting card, but allows for some very degenerate stuff right now. Limiting it to 1 free spell a turn might be ok balance wise, but would probably kill it off in standard at least (and I can't imagine too many people playing it in any format just to get one free 10 mana spell on turn 6). Limiting it to 2 spells might work, or increasing its base cost to make it harder to combo on the turn you play it. They have to tread carefully here.

* RE: Jaraxxus. Lol. They're kidding themselves if they think he'll see competitive play just from changing Sac Pact. Also, they can easily change that interaction without totally gimping Sac Pact into the ground.

* Open the Waygate - this has been my go-to mage deck for a while now (I have mage-1000 so I rarely play the class as I work on others), but I realised the other day you can still OTK with Anton into Maiev (with the caveat that you need to survive until he awakens, and you need either a discount, coin or Manasaber), which means you can build the deck without including a bunch of random-spell generators. So it's very possible the deck would stick around.

* Bloodbloom - seems like a fine card to change; while Darkest Hour is the way it has most been abused, it really does limit design space if they're ever thinking about wild. They could never print an expensive spell that summoned a large demon or anything like that, as it's too backbreaking to face that on turn 2 (or turn 1 with coin). They'll probably increase the cost (to something like 4), double how much health you lose, or limit how much you can use the effect.

Jesus Christ, people will complain about anything won't they?

Sac Pact is 100% fine. Yes, it's amazing removal against demons. You know how many classes are usually running demons in the current meta? 2. Demon hunter, and warlock. The only reason it's a bit better now is because demon hunter is a strong class, and some of their best minions are demons - but that means that it's mostly ineffective against 8 other classes (and being effective against some warlock decks never made it good enough in the past - only when it self-synergised, as it was included in Galakrond control decks as a way to heal 5 off of one of your tokens you didn't need).

Sac Pact is a tech card - and not one that's just fine if it doesn't end up hitting a target (as was the case with stuff like MCT). Essentially, it's a good inclusion for warlock when demon hunter (and possibly warlock) is a strong presence in the meta. So, how do you deal with it? You either settle on having a weaker matchup against those warlocks, or you play a different class. Do people honestly expect demon hunter (or any deck) to have a positive winrate in every matchup? Ridiculous.

And on the subject of Jaraxxus - while a 6/6 for 2 every turn is awesome, the health nerf is a huge hit (the control decks that would play him actively try not to get too low to avoid being bursted down, hence cards like Khartut Defender and Aranasi Broodmother) - it's just too rare to find the right time to play him (when you're already at 15 or below, and have the board). People aren't avoiding him because of Sac Pact; they've been avoiding him for rotation after rotation because it's hard to justify a 9 mana that, on the turn you play it, only gives you a 3 attack weapon swing (while you have 15 health, mind you).

Not sure why this is rated so high. There is no defense against early pressure/aggro. 

No Single reason to downvote this lul. U got my + sir

Murozond is an anagram for Nozdormu. Just as Loatheb was an anagram for Healbot and Zola the Gorgon was a wordplay on cheese. Anyone knows more of these?

Is it possible to refine the data to those with 6k+ ELO perhaps? That would be interesting.

Maybe a weighted average based on something like: Max((ELO - 5000)^3, 0)

That would mean someone under 5k ELO wouldn't be counted at all, while someone at 7k would count for 8 times as much as someone at 6k, and 1/8 as much as someone at 9k.

I think it's a case of timing: Echoing Ooze makes a copy of itself at the end of the turn, whereas cards like Tomb Warden or Doubling Imp summon copies as part of their battlecries.

The added deathrattle gets added as a buff after the minion is summoned into the field upon being played, resolving itself after battlecries, so it doesn't get the chance to be copied except in the case of Echoing Ooze.

Some say Nefarian's rage comes from the term "Dragon Breakfast".