Hearthpwn

Hey there Hawksbill, those are great questions. 

In regards to Raiding Party and Preparation, I haven't had any hand limiting factors myself. While it's true that in the deck itself there is only Raiding Party as a target, you generate other targets as you go. Primarily, the treasures from Heistbaron Togwaggle can be prepped out which is pretty valuable, and also you generate additional spells from your Ethereal Lackeys. So I can usually find a use for it. Also, the turn one Preparation and Raiding Party is just so strong. Finally, in a pinch you can use Prep as a zero mana combo enabler or a +2/2 for an Edwin.

As for Raiding Party pulling your pirates before Captain Hooktusk has a chance to, this isn't normally a problem unless you draw Hooktusk super late in a long game, and this problem can be minimized during the mulligan phase. The deck runs 9 pirates which is fairly substantial. In general, I've learned that if it's not helping your starting curve you don't want to keep too many pirates in your opening. It's better to draw them later with your tutors. For example, if your starting hand is Serrated Tooth, Sharkfin Fan, and Bloodsail Raider pick which 2 drop you want to go with and throw the other one back. Basically you want to find a balance between having your pirates in hand for an explosive start while also having enough in your deck to pull later. 

Hey man, thanks for checking the deck out. Honestly, Zilliax doesn't have a direct replacement because he's so versatile. It's a great offensive and defensive tool, and the heal really helps fragile classes like rogues out. It's the most played card for a good reason, and definitely worth your dust if you have it. 

That being said, I think you'll get a lot of use out of Acidic Swamp Ooze in this weapon heavy meta. If you can destroy a rogue's Waggle Pick then you'll be in a good spot. Another to look into after that might be Sap, as outside of our discover effects we don't have great single target removal.

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

That's nice for Rogue and all but I wish they got a new play style. They've been playing the aggressive Tempo thing since 2012 and I'm sick of it

 Well, a lot of rogue players, myself included, would like a new play style as well. The thing is, control rogue just sucks and has never been a thing. It just doesn't have the tools for it and never has (except mill, but that deck is it's own obnoxious category). You can't really play a spectral cutless deck right now in a meta filled with weapon removal, and pogo rogue just isn't figured out (not that a lot of people haven't been trying hard to make pogos a thing). Some classes, like druid and warrior, have been able to at one point or another fill every archetype from aggro to control. But other classes, like rogue and priest, kinda are stuck playing just one style. 

I think I'd probably take the Dragonspeaker because it's early in the draft and you already have lots of synergy. But Tidehunter is  a good 2 drop as well. Definitely not the doomsayer I'd say. If you need more info the Overwolf Arena app that Kripp uses is insanely good and will give good feedback as well. 

I actually think this could be pretty good. 2 mana stall an opponent's minion for 2 additional turns is a good tempo play and kinda reminds me of sap which sees play. Maybe it would fit into an aggressive deck. Frostbolt sees play, and this is a weaker but more flexible version. Also, cheap spells can have a lot of synergy with things like auctioneer or antonidas. All in all, I think it has potential. 

It's back bois! There's no escape! Really though, it's like the dev team just looked at the priest spellstone and were like "You know what? Let's just...not have this rotate." 

Ah yes, it is true that with 12 out of the 135 cards revealed we certainly do know how the expansion will be set. I'm a bit disappointed myself, as I too expected Blizzard to immediately replace the Shadowreaper Anduin that is rotating with another hero card of similar strength, thereby ensuring fresh, new game play for my favorite class.  I will disagree slightly with your second point about Kalecgos though; 4/12 stats for a legendary dragon has been done before and so the card feels very old and stale to me already, it's really not innovative at all. Anyway, we can always hope the next expansion 5 months from now will incorporate your ideas. Cheers!

Quote from oyabun >>

Because everyone thinks this card as a slot in a control deck. If your goal is to empty your deck or reach fatigue better build your deck around mechathun => empty deck => win instead of waiting 1 turn to hit face with nomi.

However nomi will be insane in an aggro rogue deck, you hit face, your opponent will spend all his removals on your threats, then when you don't have any card left, myra's => nomi => game over
Rogue is the only class to have a reliable way to empty its deck every game thanks to myra's

 I think an aggro/tempo rogue deck will be the way to go as well. To start with, rogue just doesn't do control. Second, a lot of aggro rogues already run Myra's, so really you're just adding in an extremely powerful late game card to seal out games. I've started theory crafting an aggro rogue deck for the new expansion. It runs Serrated Tooth, so in theory you could give those 6/6's rush sometimes. 

I think there's a chance Chef Nomi could end up really strong actually. Probably in a Myra's Unstable Element rogue deck. A rogue that can cast Chef Nomi and then shadowstep x2 to cast it two additional times for just 5 mana each time will be extremely powerful. Think about it, what spells that will still be in standard can deal with a board of 6/6's? The only ones I see are Twisting Nether for warlock, Mass Hysteria for priest, equality combos for paladin,  Hagatha's Scheme if it's been upgraded enough, and brawl for warrior. So, to be fair, that is five answers  for five different classes. But even if you clear the first wave there will be two more incoming, and a single wave left unanswered will most likely spell defeat as that's a lot of damage on board. The key will be in if there's a way for rogue to reach that state of the game reliably. 

Quote from Ruxaplenty >>

Quote from Naill009 >>

Just put in a Mojomaster Zihi. It's a fantastic card, very safe to craft.

 He's asking about odd Warrior. Zihi is even.

 Whoops, nevermind. 

Just put in a Mojomaster Zihi. It's a fantastic card, very safe to craft. I play a stupid meme pogo rogue, and exodia paladins are no problem when they suddenly find they can't play their combo for another few turns, so from lots of testing it definitely works. The great thing about Mojomaster Zihi is that unlike most tech cards that kinda suck outside of their particular counter situation Zihi is just all around great. It can delay a lot of currently common cards like Alextraza, Psychic Scream, Bloodreaver Guldan, etc. If you really hate exodia paladin and want to go overboard then you could even throw in a Zola the Gorgon so you can cast it twice. 

Quote from scorpyon >>

I mean, I'm a fairly average player.
I don't normally get decks that perform this well usually. ^_^

I would say that the biggest auto-win card for me has to be Zul'jin. 
I previously stated that I thought this card was a problem and needed attention. I'd now like to withdraw that comment in case Blizzard actually take note and stop my free-win card from being so good! 
Ahem...!

In seriousness though, I find myself wondering if there is a reasonable way to address Hunter currently. I think that the game really would benefit from more anti-secret options myself. It seems so strange that a secret-dominated meta like this doesnt have more neutral answers.

 

 I understand the frustration of constantly facing an over represented class, but there's a few of your points I'd like to address. 

The first is that there is already Chief Inspector in standard which fulfills the role of an anti-secret tech option. With each rotation Blizzard has always made sure there is some version of an anti-secret card available. You don't need more than one. Sure, hypothetically you could run double Chief Inspector, Eater of Secrets, Kezan Mystic but what you'd have is 20% of your deck now being drastic overkill to one niche situation and useless against everything else. So even if there was more anti-secret tech you wouldn't want to fill your deck with it anyways. 

As far as Zul'jin is concerned, yes he is a very strong card, but it's definitely not an automatic free win. Any control or combo deck like warrior, mage, paladin, etc. has plenty of aoe's to clear the wolves and deal with it. The hero power isn't exceptional, so once you deal with the immediate effects and clear the board with an aoe it's pretty much dealt with. If you're an aggro deck you won't have aoe, but if the game has reached turn 10 you've probably lost anyway and that's fair. 

Finally, the state of hunter right now is that it has not just one but three viable tier-1 decks that all use completely different cards. There's spell/secret hunter, deathrattle hunter, and face/master's call hunter. What this means is that because it has so many deck varieties to choose from you're going to see more of the class on ladder as a whole. Also this means that you can't effectively nerf hunter really even if you wanted to. Nerf spellstone? Deathrattle and face hunter don't use it. Nerf rexxar? Spell and face hunter aren't even running him anymore. Back to the anti-secret issue, tech in a Chief Inspector? Cool, that will work against 1/3rd of the hunters you face and the other ones won't care. 

In the end I don't believe that hunter is OP (sure, spellstone could maybe be 6 mana), it's just that it currently has three viable decks and people are just annoyed they're constantly running into it. 

What an absolute brilliant madman!!! You get all the up votes I'm able to give...which is unfortunately just the one allowed, but in spirit you get many, many more. 

Quote from Haussenfuss >>

FWIW - if you look at the data on HSReplays, Deathstalker Rexxar is the weakest DK, by a far margin. His "win-rate when played" is -12%. The next-weakest DK is Scourgelord Garrosh, at -3%. By point of comparison, the played win-rate for Bloodreaver Gul'dan is +12%.

Rexxar is a late-game value card, and he doesn't belong in any Hunter list which isn't designed to exploit the value he produces. In other words, he has a place in Cube Hunter, and Recruit Hunter, but not in any other viable Hunter list. The two worst-performing cards in Secret Hunter, for example, are the two Hero cards - by the data, they are the only "losing" cards in the deck, because Secret Hunter is simply too fast to leverage the value provided by Rexxar, and the deck has no on-curve plays after turn-5, which is a huge distance the deck needs to carry in order to play Zul'jin. In Cube Hunter, Rexxar's "win-rate when played" is even, about 12% better than every other Hunter deck - the deck is designed to go long and has plenty of late-game support, so that the Zombeasts supplement the overall game-plan of the deck. In fast Hunter builds, Rexxar doesn't have any late-game support. Fast decks benefit from pushing the button every turn, and leveraging that face damage to force a mid-game win. The cost of a Zombeast in a fast deck is 6-mana, plus 2-mana for the hero power activation, plus the cost of the Zombeast, plus the loss of persistent damage from simply pressing the button. Not really a good investment for a deck which typically has to win by turn 8.

In short - nerfing Rexxar wouldn't accomplish much, since he's the weakest card in most Hunter decks. Indeed, that also includes the slower builds - his played win-rate is merely even in Cube Hunter, and he's the fourth-weakest card in the most-popular build currently featured on HSReplays.

 I agree with a lot of this. I played a subject 9 hunter this season and easily got to legend without Rexxar. With stitched tracker to tutor subject 9 i'd never run out of resources making the rexxar hero power unneeded and the original hero power's ability to damage face is extremely useful. On the other end of the field, when I play against hunter I often believe that people misuse rexxar and play the card when they'd be better off shooting my face every turn. I do disagree on the Zul'jin being a losing card though as he was extremely powerful in my deck and would often give me the extra push i'd need to close games out.

Well how exactly would you implement the changes? I mean, there are only two cards to target to fix the ramp issue but every other card in druid seems to give armor as a side effect. You'd either have to reduce the armor gain on all of them collectively or completely change what a few of them do to make the druids have less armor giving cards overall. I do find it weird though that druids are so much better at gaining armor than warriors...which....I thought was supposed to be one of their main things...